A  SHORT  HISTORY 
OF  THE  AMERICAN 
LABOR    MOVEMENT 


BY 

MARY  BEARD 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  HOWE 

1920 


:-     (. 


Econ.  Dept.  Ec^^.   ^...     ..lain  Library 

COPYRIGHT,    1920,    BY 
HARCOURT,   BRACE   AND   HOWE,  INC. 


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PREFACE 

This  little  book  is  intended  as  a  brief  and  simple 
story  of  the  labor  movement  in  the  United  States 
from  the  day  of  independence  to  the  present  time. 
Although  there  are  many  special  studies,  including 
the  great  treatise  by  John  E.  Commons  and  his  As- 
sociates, there  is  no  single,  comprehensive  volume  of 
moderate  size  for  the  busy  citizen.  It  seems  hardly 
neeessary  to  dwell  upon  the  importance  of  more 
exact  and  more  widespread  knowledge  of  the  his- 
tory, aims  and  methods  of  labor  organizations  in 
this  country. 

This  volume  is  largely  based  upon  the  monumental 
History  of  Labor  in  the  United  States  by  Professor 
Commons  and  his  Associates.  Several  other  books, 
however,  have  been  used  with  the  Commons  text,  es- 
pecially for  the  history  since  1905.  Among  these 
supplementary  books  may  be  mentioned :  P.  F. 
Brissenden,  The  I,  W,  W.;  a  Study  in  American 
Syndicalism  (Columbia  University  Studies) ;  M. 
Hillquit,  History  of  Socialism  in  the  United  States; 
Report  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Annual  Convention 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor;  Stanwood, 
History  of  the  Presidency  (Vols.  I  and  II)  for  all 
party  platforms;  F.  Engels,  Socialism:  U^  m  and 
Scientific;  C.  Becker,  History  of  Politu  arties  in 
the  Province  of  New  York;  Alice  Hem  ,  ilie  Trade 
Union  Woman;  Edith  Abbott,  Woman  in  Industry; 
and  Samuel  Gompers,  Labor  and  the  C  »mon  Wei- 
fare. 

Mary  Rittee  Beaed. 

41(5967 


CONTENTS 

CH11>TBR  PAQB 

I.     Nature  and  Significance  of  the  Labor  Move- 
ment      1 

II.     Origin  of  American  Trade  Unions   ....  10 

III.  The  Century  Old  Tactics  of  Labor      ...  19 

IV.  Labor's  First  Political  Experiments     ...  33 
V.     Return  to  Direct  Industrial  Action    ...  47 

VI.     Industrial  Panic,  Political  Action  and  Utopias  54 

VII.     Trade  Unionism  and  the  Civil  War      ...  62 

VIII.     A  Decade  of  Panics,  Politics  and  Labor  Chaos  80 

IX.     Rise  of  THE  American  Federation  OF  Labor  .  86 

X.     The  American  Federation  of  Labor  and  Politics  103 

XI.     Revolutionary  Philosophies  and  Tactics  .  113 

XII.     Labor  and  the  World  War 150 


A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

CHAPTER  I 

ISTATUEE   AND   SIGOTFICANCE   OF  THE 
LABOE   MOVEMENT 

Labor  movement—definition. — Every  modern  in- 
dustrial country  has  a  labor  movement;  that  is,  an 
organized  and  continuous  effort  on  the  part  of  wage 
earners  to  improve  tlieir  standards  of  living  over  a 
national  area.  The  outward  and  visible  signs  of  this 
movement  are  trade  unions,  national  federations, 
strikes,  boycotts,  lockouts,  labor  leaders,  labor  con- 
ferences and  programs,  injunctions,  legal  battles, 
prosecutions,  co-operative  societies,  labor  and  social- 
ist parties,  a  labor  press  and  labor  propaganda,  the 
participation  of  labor  in  partisan  politics,  labor  lob- 
bies in  legislatures,  and  labor  colleges  and  educa- 
tional experiments.  Considered  as  a  state  of  mind, 
the  labor  movement  is  marked  by  growing  sympathy 

among  all  crafts,  trades,  and  classes  of  workers — • 

1 


•       •         • 


^ 


2"  *'  •  ''ASlEkiC  AN 'labor  MOVEMENT 

an  increasing  belief  that  their  cause  is,  at  bottom, 
one  cause. 

The  origin  of  the  labor  movement. — The  origin  of 
the  labor  movement  lies  in  self-defense — in  attempts 
of  workers  to  protect  themselves  against  the  worst 
ravages  of  the  industrial  system  as  it  proceeded  stop 
by  step  to  transform  the  agricultural  or  feudal  so- 
ciety of  tlie  eighteenth  century  into  the  urban  and 
industrial  society  of  the  twentieth  century.  xVttempts 
to  trace  modern  labor  organization  back  to  the  giiilds 
of  the  middle  ages  have  been  vain.  Not  until  the  rise 
of  the  merchant  capitalist,  the  factory  system,  the 
growth  of  great  industrial  cities,  mining,  and  trans- 
portation on  a  large  scale  did  the  modern  working- 
class  movement  emerge. 

Peculiarities  of  the  American  labor  movement. — 
While  they  have  the  same  origin,  the  labor  move- 
ments of  the  various  modern  nations  differ  in  thci]" 
membership,  structure,  policies  and  leadership.  The 
American  movement  has  had  a  distinct  character 
on  account  of  the  peculiar  political  and  economic 
conditions  prevailing  in  this  country.  Although  in 
early  times  we  had  a  great  planting  aristocracy  in 
the  southern  states,  and  a  landed  aristocracv  in  New 
York,  feudalism  never  got  a  stronghold  in  America. 

There  never  was  a  powerful  landed  nobility  and 
clergy  to  dispute  the  growing  power  of  the  hour- 
geohilc  and  labor.  Our  national  history  therefore 
had  a  more  purely  economic  coloring  from  the  start 


NATURE  AND  SIGNIFICANCE  3 

The  independence  of  our  nation  originated  in  a  trade 
and  taxation  dispute  and  in  that  dispute  mechanics 
and  artisans  were  keenly  interested.  They  played  a 
vigorous  role  in  organizing  opposition  to  British  rule, 
in  formulating  revolutionary  policies,  and  in  waging 
war  against  royal  armies  on  American  soil.*  Al- 
though there  were,  at  first,  property  qualifications  on 
the  right  to  vote,  the  suffrage  was  more  widely  ex- 
tended than  in  England ;  and  early  in  the  nineteenth 
century  the  working-men  of  the  northern  states  were 
given  the  hallot  without  their  having  to  wage  a  savage 
struggle  against  the  ruling  classes,  such  as  was  carried 
on  in  Europe. 

Many  other  forces  gave  a  particular  trend  to  the 
American  labor  movement.  For  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years  there  was  an  abundance  of  cheap  land 
in  the  West  so  that  any  laborer,  with  a  little  capital 
and  some  enterprise,  who  was  discontented  with  his 
lot  as  an  industrial  worker,  could  readily  become  an 
independent  farmer.  Then  the  American  workers 
have  had  to  bargain  over  an  iiumense  market  area, 
with  extraordinary  opportunities  for  speculation  and 
personal  gain.  They  have  had  to  compete  with  an 
enormous  and  continuous  stream  of  unorganized  im- 
migrants from  all  parts  of  the  world.  They  have 
been  compelled  to  carry  on  their  work  of  organiza- 
tion in  every  known  tongue  and  to  surmount  the 

*  Becker,  History  of  Political  Parties  in  the  Province  of 
New  York   (University  of  Wisconsin  Studies). 


4  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

almost  insuperable  obstacles  of  race  prejudices,  dif- 
ferent languages,  alien  habits.  They  have  been  com- 
pelled to  battle  with  gigantic  business  organizations 
known  as  trusts  and  combinations,  commanding  bil- 
lions of  dollars  and  monopolizing  markets  on  a  na- 
tional scale,  ^o  industrial  workers  have  had  to 
face  fiercer  competition,  a  mightier  money  power, 
more  temptations  to  desert  the  labor  movement,  and 
a  heavier  loss  of  leaders  to  politics  and  other  causes. 
Finally,  it  may  be  noted  that  the  long  and  terrible 
struggle  over  negro  slavery,  which,  occupied  the  polit- 
ical arena  for  more  than  thirty  years  and  culminated 
in  a  fratricidal  war  of  four  years'  duration,  seriously 
checked  the  early  labor  movement  and  kept  it  many 
decades  behind  the  movement  in  England.  It  was 
not  until  free  land  was  nearly  all  gone  in  the  early 
nineties  and  that  avenue  of  escape  closed  to  workmen 
that  the  American  labor  movement  assumed  the 
solidarity  that  characterizes  the  movement  in  other 
countries. 

The  universality  of  the  labor  movement. — In  spite 
of  national  peculiarities  the  labor  movement  has 
overleaped  national  boundaries.  Economic  condi- 
tions are  swiftly  becoming  the  same  the  world  over. 
The  steam  engine  and  railway  are  making  all  nations 
industrial  and,  wherever  mechanical  industry  ap- 
pears on  a  large  scale,  there  appears  also  a  labor 
movement.  As  trade  becomes  international  and  the 
market  a  world  market,  the  labor  leaders  in  the  sev- 


NATURE  AND  SIGNIFICANCE  5 

eral  countries  tend  to  draw  together  to  exchange 
ideas,  work  out  programs  for  common  action,  and 
protect  the  workers  of  each  country  against  the  com- 
petition of  other  countries. 

International  conferences  of  organized  workers 
have  heen  held  at  fairly  regular  intervals  since  1864. 
The  American  labor  movement  was  drawn  into  in- 
ternational relations  ^ve  years  later  when  it  sent 
its  first  delegate  to  Basle  in  the  hope  that  some  way 
might  be  found  to  stem  the  tide  of  cheap  immigrant 
labor  pouring  into  this  country,  lowering  the  wage 
scale  and  thereby  the  standard  of  living  for  Ameri- 
can workers.  Such  a  powerful  factor  in  the  field  of 
international  relations  had  labor  movements  become 
in  1919  that  the  Peace  of  Versailles  provided  for 
an  official  international  labor  conference  in  an  eifort 
to  equalize  and  stabilize  working  conditions  through- 
out the  world.  The  first  of  these  official  world  labor 
conferences,  composed  of  men  selected  by  their  re- 
spective governments,  met  in  Washington,  in  Octo- 
ber, 1919.  Thus  the  strongest  governments  take 
cognizance  of  the  international  character  of  labor 
relations,  forced  upon  the  attention  of  the  world  by 
the  efforts  of  organized  labor. 

Significance  of  the  labor  movement. — For  a  long 
time  this  wide-spread  labor  movement  was  almost 
entirely  ignored  by  everybody  save  those  who  took 
part  in  it  or  were  in  sympathy  with  it  or  at  least 
intellectually  curious  about  it.     Members  of  the  pro- 


6  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

fessional  classes,  for  the  most  part,  thouglit  of  it  only 
in  times  of  crisis.  It  is  a  significant  comment  on 
American  intellectuals  that  it  was  not  until  1918 
that  there  was  any  authoritative  and  exhaustive  his- 
tory of  the  American  lahor  movement.  It  is  still 
more  significant  that  the  preparation  of  this  history 
was  undertaken,  not  by  professional  historians,  but 
by  economists  who  could  not  after  all  entirely  ignore 
labor  in  studying  industry. 

There  are,  however,  occasions  when  this  extraor- 
dinary movement  sharply  engages  the  attention  of 
the  "public" — a  term  often  used  in  America  to  indi- 
cate the  great  metropolitan  newspapers.  In  a  crisis 
like  the  Great  War,  the  general  public  became  sud- 
denly aware  that  it  could  not  ignore  the  attitude  of 
organized  labor  toward  the  production  of  ships, 
munitions,  army  supplies,  and  fuel  at  a  high 
rate  of  speed  and  without  interruption  by  strikes 
and  trade  disputes.  The  prosecution  of  modern 
wars  rests  completely  upon  the  operations  of  labor  in 
mines,  mills,  and  factories,  so  that  labor  fights  there 
just  as  truly  as  the  soldiers  do  in  the  trenches.  'No 
ships;  no  transportation  of  men  and  supplies.  No 
clothing;  a  ragged  and  demoralized  army.  No  mu- 
nitions; no  advance,  no  defense.  Organizedjaboi 
thus  in  fact  holds  the  key  to  the  fighting  power  of 
modern  states.  It  not  only  influences,  by  its  poli- 
cies, the  millions  enrolled  in  its  ranks;  it  actually 
holds  in  its  grip  the  millions  outside  of  its  pale.     In 


// 


NATURE  AND  SIGNIFICANCE  7 

war  times,  therefore,  it  is  watched  with  awe,  tense 
and  constant,  as  a  mighty  power — -for  good  or  ill,  ac- 
cording to  the  opinion  of  the  observer. 

Again  the  labor  movement  is  recognized  as  a  factor 
in  national  affairs  when  it  breaks  out  in  disturb- 
ances or  demonstrations  of  its  power;  such  as, 
strikes,  boycotts,  or  riots  which  make  trouble  for  con- 
sumers, employers,  the  government,  and  the  humani- 
tarians. The  United  States  has  had  its  full  share 
of  such  disturbances.  They  have  been  intensified  by 
the  violence  of  the  industrial  panics  which  have  peri- 
odically deranged  Ajnerican  business,  spreading  ruin 
and  bankruptcy  far  and  wide,  and  resulting  in  un- 
employment, misei*y,  and  starvation  in  labor  circles. 

Labor  also  arouses  public  interest  when  it  turns 
aside  from  bargaining  with  employers  to  demand 
certain  laws  and  policies  at  the  hands  of  the  politi- 
cians, or  threatens  to  break  into  politics  on  its  own 
account.  At  such  times,  it  has  to  be  considered, 
placated,  or,  to  use  the  common  term,  ^'suppressed." 
The  "labor  vote"  thus  becomes  a  pawn  in  the  political 
game  or  the  object  of  derision  on  the  part  of  those 
who  seek  applause  by  taking  a  "firm  and  uncon> 
promising  stand  against  paltering  with  class  poli- 
tics." From  the  days  of  Andrew  Jackson  to  the 
present  time,  labor  has  been  periodically  "in  poli- 
tics." From  time  to  time  it  has  wrung  from  state 
legislatures  and  from  Congress  special  concessions 
in  the  form  of  legislation;  it  has  often  declared  its 


8  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

independence  and  elected  "labor"  members  of  boards 
of  aldermen,  legislatures,  and  the  federal  Congress. 
It  has  attempted  independent  political  parties  only 
to  merge,  as  a  rule,  with  other  parties  as  concessions 
were  won  or  issues  died  out. 

The  significance  of  the  labor  movement  is  not  ex- 
hausted by  spectacular  operations.  Its  steady  and 
persistent  work  of  organization,  its  moderate  pro- 
grams of  legislatfve  reform,  its  loyalty  to  thousands 
of  contracts,  its  vast  productiveness  in  industry  are 
all  likely  to  be  forgotten  in  times  of  peace  by  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  workers  as  well  as  by  the  public 
in  general. 

For  this  reason  the  professional  classes  and  others 
outside  of  the  labor  movement  usually  fail  to  under- 
stand labor  when  crises  are  upon  them.  They  are  apt 
to  look  upon  labor  outbursts  as  sudden  spells  of  mad- 
ness and  hysteria ;  they  declare  that  labor  has  no  pol- 
icy, no  knowledge  of  its  goal,  no  informed  leadership. 
That  is  why  some  historians  treat  the  labor  move- 
ment solely  under  such  heads  as  the  "Molly 
Maguires,"  the  "Chicago  Anarchists,"  and  the 
"Criminal  Alien,"  and  let  the  case  rest  there,  unable 
to  realize  that,  if  organized  labor  has  been  occa- 
sionally restive  and  troublesome  to  comfortable  per- 
sons, it  has  also  been  one  of  the  most  conservative 
influences  in  American  life.  It  is  true  that  there  is 
always  a  large  group  of  extreme  radicals  in  the  labo'^ 
world,  but  it  is  either  on  the  outside  of  organized 


NATURE  AND  SIGNIFICANCE  9 

labor  or  on  the  fringe  of  the  movement,  and  is  con- 
stantly subdued  by  the  more  conservative  and  official 
leaders  in  the  movement.  It  is  likewise  true  that 
there  are  Molly  Maguires  and  Herr  Mosts,  speaking 
in  the  name  of  labor,  but  for  every  representative  of 
this  type  there  are  a  dozen  men  like  John  Mitchell, 
Samuel  Gompers,  and  Matthew  \Voll.  For  every 
broken  contract  there  are  plenty  of  contracts  faith- 
fully fulfilled  to  the  end. 

The  labor  movement,  however,  is  more  than  its 
leaders,  its  organization,  and  its  strikes.  It  has  a 
deep  spiritual  and  social  sigTiificance.  It  grows  in 
strength  day  and  night.  It  develops  ideals  of  peace, 
harmony,  and  well-being  in  the  industrial  world  as 
well  as  contest  and  destructiveness.  The  form  of 
labor's  organization  and  its  program  change  from 
day  to  day,  but  its  numerical  strength  increases  and 
its  growing  solidarity  gives  more  and  more  weight 
to  its  counsels.  Indeed  it  takes  on  the  form  of  a 
great  social  force  akin  to  titanic  forces  in  the  natural 
world.  For  that  reason,  if  for  no  other,  it  is  better 
to  study  and  understand  it  than  blindly  to  praise  it 
or  rail  at  it 


CHAPTER  II 
ORIGIN  OF  MIERICAJS^  TRADE  UNIONS 

Local   labor   organizations   in   colonial   times. — 

There  -were  no  trade  unions  in  the  modern  sense  in 
the  American  colonies  under  British  dominion. 
There  were  labor  organizations  in  the  towns  but  they 
were  friendly  and  benevolent  societies  formed  by 
mechanics  and  journeymen.  They  were  similar  in 
spirit  to  those  formed  among  master  employers. 
Their  main  purpose  was  to  take  care  of  members  in 
times  of  illness  or  financial  distress.  They  were 
friendly  societies  in  an  age  when  public  hospitals, 
homes  for  the  aged,  poor  farms,  pensions,  and  char- 
itable institutions  were  not  sustained  on  a  large 
scale  by  public  taxation.  They  were  formed  by  the 
new  town-dwellers — printers,  shoemakers,  smiths, 
and  carpenters, — who  had  been  separated  from  the 
soil  and  therefore  had  no  individual  resources  to  fall 
back  upon  in  an  emergency.  Just  as  members  of 
the  same  church,  race,  or  neighborhood  drew  together 
for  mutual  aid,  so  the  mechanics  drew  together  t(> 
help  one  another.     As  there  were  no  banks  or  credit 

societies,  these  early  trade  societies  kept  chests   **or 

10 


ORIGIN  OF  AMERICAN  TRADE  UNIONS      11 

the  deposit  of  money  and,  on  occasion,  loaned  money 
to  members  in  need.  In  addition  to  their  benevolent 
features,  they  acted  as  censors  of  the  quality  of  the 
work  of  their  members  and  even  censored  morals  as 
well  as  workmanship.  When  they  were  legally  in- 
corporated, it  was  with  the  express  stipulation  that 
they  were  not  to  interfere  with  wages,  hours  of  labor, 
and  similar  economic  matters.  In  short,  they  were 
not  trade  unions  as  we  understand  that  term  to-day. 

Independence  opens  a  new  era  in  industry  and 
labor. — With  American  independence,  an  entirely 
new  set  of  forces  came  into  play.  Great  Britain 
had  supervised  and  restricted  American  enterprise  in 
the  interest  of  the  mother  country.  When  her  re- 
straints were  thrown  off,  Americans  thought  they 
could  develop  their  own  industries  in  their  own  way. 
They  could  trade  with  all  countries  of  the  world  and 
thus  widely  extend  their  markets,  increasing  the 
demand  for  their  goods.  Great  Britain,  being- 
anxious  to  retain  industries  for  herself,  had  sought 
to  keep  the  colonies  agricultural  in  character.  British 
control  being  broken,  the  Americans  leaped  with  zeal 
into  the  industrial  iieid.  They  had  an  abundance  of 
natural  resources  of  all  kinds,  and  they  no  longer  had 
an  outside  force  to  stay  their  hands. 

The  adoption  of  the  Constitution  marks  a  com- 
mercial revolution. — The  period  that  followed  inde- 
j  ?ndence  (1776)  was  one  of  war  and  weakness,  but 
>  Hon  the  nevv'  form  of  government  was  established  in 


12  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

1789,  giving  strength  to  the  union  of  states  and 
security  to  business,  American  enterprise  was  soon 
manifest.  Under  the  Constitution,  a  national  bani 
was  founded  to  give  a  common  medium  of  exchange 
throughout  the  country ;  uniform  currency  was  intro- 
duced ;  treaties  with  foreign  powers  were  negotiated ; 
the  tariffs  which  the  states  had  formerly  imposed  on 
goods  coming  from  other  states  were  broken  down. 
In  a  word,  the  American  market  was  extended  over 
the  entire  United  States.  Commercial  warfare  be- 
tween the  states  was  stopped.  Finances  were  put  on 
a  sound  basis.  American  credit  abroad  was  estab- 
lished firmly  and  foreign  capital  to  develop  iron, 
steel,  ship  building  and  other  industries  was  secured 
in  abundance.  With  social  order  guaranteed,  plenty 
of  capital  at  hand,  unlimited  natural  resources,  a 
national  market  available,  a  world  market  opened,  a 
generous  supply  of  European  labor  assured  through 
immigration,  American  business  men  could  swing 
forward  with  their  industries  on  a  large  scale. 
,^  The  great  market  opened  by  the  merchant  capi- 
talist.— The  great  market  was  first  opened  by  a 
peculiar  type  of  business  man,  the  merchant  capital- 
ist. He  was  not  usually  the  owner  of  industries  nor 
the  employer  of  artisans.  He  was  a  trader  and  mid- 
dle-man, mediating  between  the  producer  and  the 
consumer.  He  specialized  in  buying  and  selling.  His 
motto  was:  ^^Buy  m'  the"  clieapest  market  and  sell 
in  the  dearest  market."     He  therefore  bought  up 


ORIGIN  OP  AMERICAN  TRADE  UNIONS      13 

immense  supplies,  sometimes  in  Europe,  and  some- 
times in  Boston,  Providence,  Hartford,  New  York, 
Philadelpliia  and  wherever  they  could  be  found. 
These  he  accumulated  in  warehouses  at  one  or  more 
points  and  sold  in  large  quantities  to  local  store- 
keepers, competing  sharply  with  the  local  master  and 
his  workman. 

The  merchant  capitalist  conquers  local  em- 
ployers.— The  community  market  was  being  sup- 
planted by  a  national  and  even  international  market. 
Now  the  cheapest  market  in  which  to  buy  was  the 
market  in  which  production  was  the  most  advanced 
and,  as  American  industries  were  far  behind  those 
of  Europe,  the  merchant  capitalist  bought  most  of 
his  goods  abroad.  Thus  he  incurred  the  odium  of 
American  employers,  employees,  and  patriots  like 
Washing-ton  and  Hamilton  who  wanted  to  develop 
home  industries.  Americans  who  thought  they 
could  capture  the  European  market  by  being  freed 
from  England  found  themselves  captured  instead  by 
traders  in  foreign  goods.  The  merchant  capitalist 
made  steady  headway,  bringing  under  his  thumb  the 
local  employer  whose  community  market  he  invaded, 
undercutting  him  in  the  sale  of  goods.  The  employer, 
who  in  older  and  simpler  days  could  take  sides  with 
his  workmen  against  the  community  in  fixing  wages 
and  prices,  could  no  longer  do  this.  He  lost  his 
monopoly  over  prices  in  his  o^ti  market.     If  he  met 


14  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

the  competition  of  cheap  goods  from  abroad,  or  from 
other  American  towns,  he  had  to  cut  wages. 

Employers  and  workmen  seek  protection. — The 
merchant  capitalist  thus  found  natural  enemies  in 
both  American  employers  and  workmen.  Out  of  the 
struggle  against  him  four  important  results  ensued: 
(l)"a  national  protective  tariff  policy;  (2)  attempts 
of  masters  and  men  to  increase  the  quantity  and 
improve  the  quality  of  their  output;  (3)  the  sep- 
aration of  the  employees  from  their  employers  and 
the  formation  of  unions  designed  to  uphold  wages; 
(4)  the  recognition  by  the  workmen  of  themselves 
as  a  distinct  group  in  the  community  with  interests 
of  their  own  in  markets  and  wages  to  be  sustained  by 
the  strength  of  organization  against  all  comers. 

At  first  as  anxious  as  their  employers  to  secure 
protection  against  cheap  foreign  goods  brought  in  by 
the  merchant  capitalist,  workmen  supported  the 
adoption  of  the  new  federal  Constitution  and  ap- 
proved the  enactment  of  tariff  laws^  laying  duties  on 
imports.  They  also  combined  with  their  master  em- 
ployers in  associations  to  improve  their  respective 
trades  and  crafts.  An  Association  of  Mechanics  and 
Manufacturers  was  formed  in  Providence  in  1789 
*^for  the  purpose  of  promoting  industry  and  giving  a 
just  encouragement  to  ingenuity."  In  Boston  and 
Charleston,  shipwrights  and  caulkers  offered  pre- 
miums for  inventions  and  made  every  effort  to  spur 
the  younger  workers  to  use  their  minds  in  impiov- 


ORIGIN  OP  AMERICAN  TRADE  UNIONS     15 

ing  methods  and  tools.  In  Boston  the  printers 
employed  chemists  to  perfect  type,  paper,  ink  and 
other  products.  A  patent  law  passed  in  1790  gave 
protection  to  American  inventors.  Apprentice 
schools  and  libraries  were  established  in  New  York 
and  Philadelphia  with  a  view  to  increasing  the  skill 
and  productiveness  of  workmen  and  masters.  Every 
encouragement  was  given  to  young  men  to  estab- 
lish shops  of  their  own  in  order  that  skill  and  inde- 
pendence might  be  blended  in  American  labor  in  the 
future  as  in  colonial  times.  Even  loan  funds  were 
created,  Benjamin  Franklin  leaving  £1000  for  this 
object  because  he  had  been  established  in  the  print- 
ing business  in  this  manner.  Thus  labor  and  em- 
ployers united  in  a  conunon  protection  against  tlie 
merchant  capitalist  who  was  invading  American 
markets  with  cheap  goods. 
Labor  breaks  away  from  employers. — ^With  all 

their  efforts  at  self-protection  and  improvement  in 
the  technique  of  their  industry,  the  industrial  work- 
ers, how^ever,  saw  a  steady  trend  toward  cheap  wares 
and  low  wages.  In  all  parts  of  the  country,  the  mer- 
chant capitalist  carried  on  his  operations,  buying  and 
selling  domestic  products  as  well  as  disposing  of  his 
foreign  stocks.  Societies  of  master  employers, 
which  had  been  mainly  benevolent,  now  changed  to 
associations  to  keep  down  wages  in  order  that  they 
might  secure  contracts  with  the  middleman,  the  mer- 
chant capitalist.     Labor  associations  with  benevolent 


16  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

purposes  gave  way  to  trade  unions  organized  for  pro- 
tection against  the  invader  who  cut  prices  and  wages 
and  looked  solely  to  profits.  Labor  also  began  to 
divorce  itself  from  societies  of  manufacturers  and 
master  mechanics  formed  to  train  apprentices  and 
improve  methods  of  production.  Workingmen  began 
to  say :  ^'What  is  the  use  of  improving  our  skill  and 
increasing  our 'output,  if  we  cannot  protect  ourselves 
against  falling  wages  ?" 

The  rise  of  the  trade  union. — Such  were  the  cir- 
cumstances in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury which  gave  birth  to  the  trade  union  and  the 
labor  movement.  Even  before  the  Constitution  had 
been  adopted,  some  New  York  workmen  saw  what 
was  coming  and  organized  In  1785.  a- society  tx)  fore- 
stall the  wholesaler,  the  merchant  capitalist,  the 
middleman  who  invaded  and  destroyed  the  peace  of 
the  community  market.  About  the  same  time  other 
societies  began  to  spring  up  rapidly.  These  organi- 
zations were  made  up  of  skilled  w^orkers  only:  like 
printers,  shoemakers,  tailors,  and  carpenters.  All 
records  of  many  of  these  early  local  labor  societies 
have  disappeared ;  but  we  knov;  that  the  shoemakers 
of  Philadelphia  were  organized  in  1T92;  that  the 
printers  of  New  York  had  their  Typographical  So- 
ciety as  early  as  1794  and  were  organized  in  Balti- 
more and  Philadelphia  during  the  opening  years  of 
the  nineteenth  century.     The  Boston  printers  were 


ORIGIN  OF  AMERICAN  TRADE  UNIONS     17 

associated  on  a  permanent  basis  in  1809,  and  in  New 
Orleans  a  year  later. 

During  tlie  quarter  of  a  century  that  followed  the 
inauguration  of  Washington  as  first  President  of  the 
United  States  in  1789,  the  skilled  workmen  of  the 
American  towns  formed  powerful  local  organiza- 
tions to  take  part  in  the  fixing  of  wages,  hours,  and 
the  conditions  of  the  industries  generally.  During 
the  same  period,  trade  unions  drew  slowly  away 
from  employers,  finally  excluding  from  membership 
those  journeymen  who  became  masters.  In  1817 
the  iNew  York  printers  expelled  a  member  who  had 
become  an  employer,  saying:  "This  is  a  society  of 
journeymen  printers;  and  as  the  interests  of  the 
journeymen  are  separate  and  in  some  respects  oppo- 
site to  those  of  the  employers  we  deem  it  improper 
that  they  should  have  any  voice  or  influence  in  our 
deliberations." 

These  organizations  of  employees,  united  as  a  class 
to  fight  their  own  battles,  were  purely  local  associa- 
tions of  local  workmen  in  specific  trades.  There 
was  no  consistent,  combined  action  among  the  mem- 
bers of  the  several  trade  unions  in  any  single  town. 
The  printers  carried  on  their  own  affairs  and  the 
shoemakers  theirs.  They  were  not  indifferent,  of 
course,  to  the  struggles  of  their  fellow  workmen  of 
other  crafts.  There  were  correspondence  and  friendly 
co-operation  among  the  various  craft  unions  of  a 
single  city  and  among  the  unions  of  a  single  craft 


18  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

in  several  cities,  but  it  was  not  until  long  after- 
ward that  strikes,  politics,  and  battles  against  judi- 
cial decisions  began  to  turn  tbe  minds  of  trade 
unionists  to  organization  on  a  municipal,  state,  and 
national  scale.  The  day  of  the  great  newspaper,  the 
railway,  and  the  telegraph  had  not  yet  aiTived. 
Trade  unionism  was  local  and  confined  to  separate 
crafts. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  CEISTTURY-OLD  TACTICS  OE  LABOR 

Labor  tactics  as  important  as  labor  organization. 

— An  organization  without  policy  and  action  is,  of 
course,  powerless  to  accomplish  results.  Naturally, 
therefore,  the  early  local  associations  of  craftsmen 
had  to  decide  just  what  methods  they  were  to  follow 
in  dealing'  with  their  employers.  In  the  old  days 
when  they  worked  side  by  side  with  the  master,  and 
there  were  only  a  few  in  the  shop,  it  was  a  simple 
matter  for  them  to  talk  over  in  a  friendly  way  any 
problems  or  differences  that  arose.  As  the  cities 
grew  in  size  and  the  shops  increased  in  number,  as 
the  employees  began  firmly  to  close  their  unions 
to  masters,  the  question  of  how  best  to  formulate 
their  demands,  present  them  to  their  employers,  and 
enforce  them  became  a  live  issue.  One  by  one  the 
elcDients  of  the  problem  were  worked  out  and  a  pro- 
gram of  tactics  and  policies  developed. 

Collective  bargaining. — Collective  bargaining, 
meaning  negotiations  carried  on  between  employers 
(or  their  representatives),  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 

chosen  representatives  of  the  trade  union,   on  the 

19 


20  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

other  hand,  appeared  in  the  early  days  of  the  Amer- 
ican labor  movement.  It  is  recorded  that  the  first 
attempt  at  regular  collective  bargaining  of  this  kind 
was  made  by  the  Philadelphia  shoemakers  in  1799 
when  a  ^'deputation  from  the  society  waited  upon 
the  employers  witli  an  offer  of  compromise."  In 
this  case  the  employers  said  they  would  consider  the 
offer  and  appointed  a  committee  of  their  own  to  meet 
with  the  journeymen.  In  1802  the  printers  and 
shoemakers  of  Philadelphia  and  the  shoemakers  of 
Pittsburgh  sent  a  committee  to  visit  various  employ- 
ers and  confer  with  them  over  the  wage  scales. 

In  1809,  when  the  New  York  printers  submitted 
their  lists  to  the  masters,  this  courteous  reply  came 
back  from  the  employers'  association :  "In  presenting 
[a  set  of  resolutions]  to  the  consideration  of  the 
Typographical  society,  they  [the  emploj-ers]  think 
it  proper  to  remark  that,  although  no  circumstances 
have  come  to  their  knowledge  which  would  justify 
on  the  part  of  the  journeymen  a  demand  for  more 
than  the  customary  wages,  yet,  desirous  of  meeting 
them  in  the  spirit  of  conciliation  and  harmony  and 
to  remove  every  obstacle  that  might  have  a  tendency 
to  interrupt  a  mutual  good  understanding,  the  mas- 
ter printers  have  made  considerable  advances  on  the 
prices  hitherto  given  and  to  as  great  an  extent  as  the 
present  state  of  the  printing  business  would  admit. 
The  scale  which  is  now  offered  may  therefore  be 
considered  as  a  maximum  beyond  which  it  would  be 


CENTURY-OLD  TACTICS  OF  LABOR      21 

highly  injurious,  if  not  ruinous,  to  the  interests  of 
the  trade  to  venture."  As  a  result  of  this  courtesy 
on  the  part  of  the  employing  printers,  committees 
representing  both  sides  of  the  controversy  met  and 
finally  agreed  upon  a  compromise  scale  of  wages. 
All  over  the  country  similar  attempts  were  made 
so  that  we  may  say  the  nineteenth  century  opened 
with  the  principle  of  collective  bargaining  well  un- 
derstood in  labor  and  employing  circles  and  fre- 
quently applied  in  trade  disputes. 

Strikes. — The  strike,  meaning  the  action  of  work- 
men in  quitting  their  employment  in  a  body,  is,  of 
course,  a  natural  corollary  of  organization  and  the 
formulation  of  demands  as  to  wages  and  hours.  La- 
bor early  recognized  this  fact.  Ten  years  after  the 
Declaration  of  American  Independence  in  1776,  the 
printers  of  Philadelphia,  after  providing  for  a  strike 
fund  for  the  benefit  of  members,  struck  against  their 
employers.  In  1799  the  skilled  shoemakers  of  Balti- 
more and  Pittsburgh  struck  for  higher  wages,  against 
the  competition  of  Lynn,  Massachusetts,  which  had 
become  a  large  center  for  the  manufacture  of  coarse 
shoes — a  center  of  cheap  shoes  and  cheap  labor.  The 
practic^e  thus  early  established  was  followed  quite 
regTilarly  when  agreements  over  wages  could  not  be 
reached  by  negotiations. 

For  the  most  part,  it  seems,  these  first  trade  dis- 
putes were  conducted  without  any  considerable  dis- 
turbance.    The  journeymen  simply  remained  away 


22  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

from  work  until  tlie  employers  gave  in,  or  they  were 
compelled  to  yield,  or  a  compromise  was  reached. 
Violence  and  intimidation  did  however  occasionally 
appear,  as  in  the  case  of  the  shoemakers'  strike  in 
Philadelphia  in  1806  when  ^^scabs  were  beaten  and 
employers  intimidated  by  demonstrations  in  front 
of  the  shop  or  by  breaking  shop  windows." 

The  walking  delegate. — As  soon  as  a  labor  or- 
ganization began  to  fix  a  "price  list"  or  wage  scale, 
it  adopted  the  practice  of  sending  the  paper  around 
to  employers.  One  of  the  representatives  of  the 
union  might  "walk"  around  to  see  the  masters.  In 
1800  the  Franklin  Typographical  Society  of  iNew 
York  drew  up  the  first  complete  wage  scale  in  the 
country  and  sent  it  to  the  individual  employers  of 
printers.  Some  labor  societies  selected  "tramp- 
ing committees"  to  visit  the  various  shops  to  see 
whether  the  workmen  in  the  unions  were  abiding  by 
the  wage  scale  and  were  "honest  to  the  cause."  This 
took  a  great  deal  of  time  and  it  was  not  thought  fair 
to  ask  members  to  do  such  work  without  remunera- 
tion. As  early  as  179Q,  the  Philadelphia  shoe- 
makers substituted  one  delegate  for  the  committee 
and  arranged  to  pay  him  for  his  labor.  Thus  the 
paid  walking  delegate  appeared  on  the  scene.  It 
was  a  long  time,  however,  before  the  tramping  com- 
mittee was  entirely  set  aside  in  favor  of  the  paid 
agent. 

The  closed  shop. — The  term  '^'losed  shop"  is  of 


CENTURY-OLD  TACTICS  OF  LABOR      23 

modern  origin  but  the  exclusive  policy  which  it  im- 
plies appeared  in  the  labor  movement  as  early  as 
1794  v^hen  the  cordwainers  of  Philadelphia  and 
elsewhere  compelled  each  employer  to  retain  none 
but  union  members  in  his  shop.  This  was  an  old 
principle  applied  in  the  organization  of  guilds  in  the 
middle  ages  and  by  the  lawyers  and  other  profes- 
sional classes.  The  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and 
Pittsburgh  cordwainers,  as  soon  as  they  were  well 
organized,  required  every  member  of  the  craft  to 
join  the  society  on  entering  the  town.  One  manu- 
facturer who  refused  to  recognize  only  members  of 
the  cordwainers'  society  was  forced  to  move  out  of 
Philadelphia  after  fighting  the  closed  shop  idea  for  a 
year  and  a  half.  Employers  were  sometimes  com- 
pelled to  pay  fines  to  the  union  for  employing  non- 
union members.  During  a  strike  of  the  !New  York 
Cordwainers  in  1810,  the  lawyer  for  the  society 
explained  what  the  trouble  was  all  about:  "If  the 
majority  of  the  workmen  were  content  with  their 
wages,  the  majority  would  be  harmless;  but  if  an 
individual  will  seek  to  better  himself  at  the  expense 
of  nis  fellows,  when  they  are  suffering  privation  to 
obtain  better  terms,  it  is  not  hard  that  they  leave 
him  to  his  employers ;  and  the  most  inoffensive  man- 
ner in  which  they  can  show  their  displeasure  is  by 
shaking  the  dust  off  their  feet  and  leaving  the  shop 
where  he  is  engaged." 

The  boycott. — This  modern  term  means  "to  com- 


24  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

bineX^).m  refusing  to  work  for,  buy  from,  sell  to, 
give  assistance  to,  or  to  have  any  dealings  with; 
and  (b)  in  preventing  others  from  working  for,  buy- 
ing from,  selling  to,  assisting,  or  having  any  kind 
of  dealings  with"  another  person  or  company.  The 
term  originated  in  Ireland  in  1880,  but  the  practice 
which  it  implies  appeared  very  early  in  the  Ajnerican 
labor  movement  in  the  form  of  discrimination  against 
non-union  workmen.  The  boycott  of  the  non-union 
man  was  first  applied,  not  to  the  master  who  em- 
ployed him  or  to  the  goods  he  made,  but  to  the  board- 
ing house  where  he  ate.  Social  intercourse  with  him 
was  forbidden.  Sometimes  he  was  roughly  handled 
and  compelled  to  pay  a  fine  to  the  union  for  refusing 
to  join. 

Control  over  apprenticeship. — No  union  can  ef- 
fectively control  wages  without  reference  to  the  su^.^- 
ply  of  trained  workmen  ready  to  enter  the  craft. 
For  this  reason,  the  American  local  unions,  at  the 
very  outset,  took  a  stand  on  apprenticeship.  They 
naturally  objected  strenuously  to  the  unskilled 
worker  whose  low  standard  tended  to  cut  wa^c^es  and 
bring  about  sharp  competition  both  in  the  quality 
of  work  and  the  compensation  received  for  it.  The 
New  York  Typographical  Society,  for  instance,  in 
1809,  complained  that  "a  superabundance  of  learn- 
ers, runaway  apprentices,  and  half-way  journeymen 
as  well  as  adults  who  had  served  less  than  half  time 
at  their  trade,  had  a  depressing  effect  upon  the  wages 


CENTURY-OLD  TACTICS  OF  LABOR      25 

of  full-fledged  workers."  In  a  like  manner,  the 
New  York  cordwainers  protested  against  the  way 
the  masters  crowded  "their  shops  with  more  appren- 
tices than  they  could  instruct."  The  printers  also 
protested  against  "taking  full  grown  men  [foreign- 
ers] as  apprentices  for  some  twelve  or  fifteen  months 
when  they  are  to  be  turned  into  the  situations  of  the 
men  who  are  masters  of  their  business,  which  men 
are  to  be  turned  out  of  their  places  by  miserable 
botches  because  they  will  work  for  what  they  can 
get."  Attempts,  however,  to  regulate  apprentice- 
ship were  not  very  effective  on  account  of  the  rapid 
growth  of  the  population,  the  influx  of  foreigners, 
and  the  continual  shifting  of  the  people  from  city  to 
city.  The  old  English  rule  of  "six  year  apprentice- 
ship" was  merely  a  custom  more  often  neglected  than 
observed.  Labor  unions  struggled  to  maintain  it, 
but  they  had  varying  success. 

The  minimum  wage. — Skilled  workers  were  forced 
to  rely  upon  the  minimum  wage  or  standard  piece 
rate  as  a  means  of  defense  against  the  inferior  work- 
man or  half-trained  apprentice.  From  the  first 
they  insisted  upon  a  minimum  wage  below  which  no 
worker  could  fall,  while  the  more  skilled  might  rise 
above  it  if  he  could.  If  employers  had  to  pay  that 
wage  they  naturally  would  not  choose  unskilled  work- 
men. The  minimum  wage  was  bound  up  also  with 
the  price  for  which  the  given  product  could  be  sold 
in  the  market.    Workers  refused  to  permit  a  master 


26  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

to  sell  his  goods  at  such  a  price  that  the  mininmm 
wage  could  not  be  paid.  This  in  effect  merely  meiint 
continuing  as  far  as  possible  the  practice  of  tije  old 
days  when  master  and  men  by  agreement  decided 
upon  a  ^'fair  wage''  and  a  ^^fair  price''  for  the  goods 
v/hich  they  sold  to  their  neighbors  in  the  community, 
but  it  was  only  by  a  strong  union  that  it  could  be 
maintained  after  the  invasion  of  the  market  by  the 
merchant  capitalist  and  the  factory  system. 

Employers'  Associations. — It  is  sometimes  said 
that  employers'  associations  were  older  than  trade 
unions  and  were  formed  for  the  purpose  of  cutting 
down  wages.  The  evidence  in  the  case,  however, 
seems  to  point  to  the  contrary.  There  were,  it  is 
true,  employers'  organizations  very  early  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  labor  movement.  The  Master  Cord- 
wainers  were  organized  in  1789,  but  their  aim  was 
rather  to  raise  prices  than  to  reduce  wages.  As 
soon  as  the  wages  question  became  serious,  as  the 
result  of  the  fomiation  of  strong  trade  unions,  or- 
ganizations of  m;asters  were  established  to  resist 
the  demands  of  the  workmen.  When  workers  were 
scarce  they  negotiated  with  then  in  a  conciliatory 
way.  As  the  unions  grew  in  strength  the  masters 
often  sought  an  opportunity  to  ''break  them  up  alto- 
gether, root  and  branch."  They  advertised  out  of 
town  for  new  workmen ;  they  agreed  among  them- 
selves to  resist  high  wage  scales ;  ancFthey  united  in 
appealing  to  the  courts  for  aid  against  employees' 


CENTURY-OLD  TACTICS  OF  LABOR      27 

"ctouspiracies  in  restraint  of  trade/'  as  they  called 
strikes  and  concerted  wage  demands. 

Labor's  battles  in  the  courts.—  The  contest  be- 
tween masters  and  trade  unions  was  carried  into 
the  courts  in  Philadelphia  as  early  as  1806,  in  N'ew 
York  in  1809,  and  in  Pittsburgh  in  1814.  In  the 
latter  two  cases  it  appears  that  the  masters  had 
raised  considerable  sums  of  money  to  aid  in  the 
prosecution  of  strikers  for  criminal  conspiracy. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  employers  all  over  the  country 
were  interested  in  the  outcome  of  the  legal  battles; 
for  the  reporter  of  the  Pittsburgh  case  said  in  the 
preface  to  his  repoii; : 

Perhaps  he  would  not  .  .  .  have  undertaken  to  re- 
port it,  but  for  the  pressing  solicitations  of  many  re- 
spectable Mechanics  and  Manufacturers.  .  .  ,  The  ver- 
dict of  the  jury  is  most  important  to  the  manufacturing 
interests  of  the  community ;  it  puts  an  end  to  those  asso- 
ciations which  have  been  so  prejudicial  to  the  successful 
enterprize  of  the  capitalists  of  the  western  country.  But 
this  case  is  not  important  to  this  country  alone ;  it  proves 
beyond  possibility  of  doubt  that  notwithstanding  the 
adjudications  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  there  still 
exist  in  those  cities  combinations  which  extend  their 
deleterious  influence  to  every  part  of  the  union.  The 
inhabitants  of  those  cities,  the  manufacturers  particu- 
larly, are  boimd  by  their  interests,  as  well  as  the  duties 
they  owe  [the]  community,  to  watch  those  combinations 
with  a  jealous  eye,  and  to  prosecute  to  conviction  and 


28  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

subject  to  the  penalties  of  the  law,  conspiracies  so  sub- 
versive to  the  best  interests  of  the  country. 


The  legal  issue  involved  in  the  conspiracy  cases 
was  whether,  in  the  absence  of  a  statute  or  act  of  the 
legislature  on  the  point,  the  old  common  law  doc- 
trine of  England  applied  in  this  country;  if  it  did, 
any  combination  of  workmen  to  raise  wages  was  to 
be  regarded  as  a  conspiracy  against  the  public.  On 
this  point  American  citizens  were  divided.  The 
Federalists,  or  conservative  followers  of  Alexander 
Hamilton,  held  that  the  English  law  did  apply  in 
America.  The  followers  of  Jefferson,  who  were 
certainly  radical  in  their  opinion  for  their  day,  took 
the  opposite  view.  Of  six  legal  cases  arising  between 
1806  and  1815,  four  were  decided  against  the  work- 
men. A  Baltimore  case  ended  in  a  verdict  for  the 
journeymen,  and  a  Pittsburgh  case  resulted  in  a  com- 
promise in  which  the  workmen  in  fact  lost  the  strike 
and  paid  the  costs  of  the  legal  battle. 

The  conviction  of  the  union  men  in  Philadelphia 
and  New  York  was  followed  by  a  hot  political  dis- 
pute between  the  conservative  Federalists  and  the 
radical  Jeffersonian  Democrats.  Indeed,  during  the 
contest  in  the  courts  the  Jeffersonian  papers  attacked 
the  legal  doctrine  of  English  common  law  that  com- 
binations of  w^orkmen  were  in  restraint  of  trade  and 
therefore  illegal.  In  the  elections  shortly  afterward 
the  issue  was  carried  to  the  polls  and  the  Jefferson- 


CENTURY-OLD  TACTICS  OF  LABOR      29 

ians  succeeded  in  electing  judges  more  favorable  to 
the  contention  of  labor,  but  the  contest  was  not  closed 
for  all  time.  On  the  contrary,  it  continued  to  be  a 
live  question  discussed  with  much  passion  whenever 
strikes  and  labor  disputes  brought  it  to  the  front. 

A  careful  analysis  of  the  opinions  expressed  on 
both  sides  in  the  early  stages  of  the  struggle  shows 
how  old  and  American  are  manv  ideas  that  seem 
strange,  perverse,  and  perhaps  alien  in  character  to 
those  who  do  not  know  our  history.  On  behalf  of 
the  employers  who  sought  the  dissolution  of  combina- 
tions of  workmen  formed  to  raise  wages,  it  was 
said:  "Those  best  acquainted  with  our  situation  be- 
lieve that  manufactures  will  bye  and  bye  become 
one  of  its  chief  means  of  support.  A  vast  quantity 
of  manufactured  articles  are  already  exported  to  the 
West  Indies  and  the  southern  states;  we  rival  sup- 
plies from  England  in  many  things  and  great  sums 
are  annually  received  in  return.  It  is  then  proper 
to  support  this  manufacture.  Will  you  permit  men 
to  destroy  it,  who  have  no  permanent  stake  in  the 
city;  men  who  can  pack  up  their  all  in  a  knapsack 
or  carry  them  in  their  pockets  to  I^ew  York  or  Bal- 
timore?'' Such  was  the  impassioned  declaration 
of  the  prosecutor  in  the  Philadelphia  case. 

The  Pittsburgh  judge  in  his  charge  to  the  jurors 
warned  them  that  such  combinations  would  drive 
manufacturing  out  of  the  city,  adding:  "Is  this  a 
slight  consideration  in  a  manufacturing  town  ?     And 


30  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

can  they  be  guiltless  who  euter  into  combinations 
which  have  a  manifest  tendency  to  produce  such  a 
result?"  The  jurors  were  furthermore  reminded 
that  they  were  consumers  and  that  higher  wages 
meant  higher  prices.  They  were  told  that  liberty 
and  equality  were  on  the  side  of  the  employers.  The 
prosecutors  were  represented  as  men  who  "merely 
stood  as  the  guardians  of  the  community  from  impo- 
sition and  rapacity/'  upholding  freedom  and  liberty 
against  oppression  by  organized  workmen. 

The  spokesmen  of  labor  on  their  part  also  used 
arguments  that  seem  to  have  a  modern  ring.  They 
laid  claim  to  the  highest  kind  of  patriotism.  They 
argued  that  recognition  of  labor's  claims  "will  in- 
crease our  commerce,  encourage  our  manufactures, 
and  promote  peace  and  prosperity."  They  said  to 
the  consumer : 

Temptations  are  held  out  to  procure  a  convic- 
tion. .  .  .  You  are  told  that  you  will  get  your  cossacks 
and  slippers  made  cheaper  by  convicting  the  defendants 
[the  workmen].  .  .  .  Rest  assured  that  they  will  not 
fox  a  boot  or  heel  tap  a  shoe,  one  farthing  cheaper  for  a 
conviction  ...  If  you  banish  from  this  place  (as  it  is 
morally  certain  you  will)  a  great  number  of  the  best 
workmen,  by  a  verdict  of  guilty,  can  you  reasonably 
expect  that  labor  will  be  cheaper?  Will  it  not  rise  in 
value  in  exact  proportiou  to  tlie  scarcity  of  hands  and 
the  demand  for  boots  and  shoes  like  every  other  article 
in  the  market? 


Cl.NTURY-OLD  TACTICS  OF  LABOR      31 

Labor's  advocate  in  Philadelpliia  in  arguing  for  lib- 
erty and  democracy  declared:  "I  would  not  barter 
away  our  dear  bought  rights  and  American  liberty 
for  all  the  warehouses  of  London  and  Liverpool  and 
the  manufactures  of  Birmingham  and  Manchester; 
no,  not  if  were  to  be  added  to  them  the  gold  of 
Mexico,  the  silver  of  Peru,  and  the  diamonds  of 
Brazil."  The  striking  shoemakers  under  prosecu- 
tion in  Philadelphia,  in  a  Jeffersonian  newspaper, 
made  their  appeal  for  political  support  in  this  lan- 
guage: "The  master  shoemakers  .  .  .  who  in  truth 
live  upon  the  work  of  our  hands,  are  generally  men 
of  large  property  to  whom  the  suspension  of  busi- 
ness, though  it  is  a  loss,  is  not  so  great  a  loss  as  the 
total  suspension  of  the  means  of  subsistence  is  to 
us  who  obtain  our  income  from  week  to  week.  .  .  . 
The  name  of  freedom  is  but  a  shadow,  if  for  doing 
what  the  laws  of  our  country  authorize  we  are  to 
have  taskmasters  to  measure  out  our  pittance  of  sub- 
sistence— if  we  are  to  be  torn  from  our  firesides  for 
endeavoring  to  obtain  a  fair  and  just  support  for 
our  families,  and  if  we  are  to  be  treated  as  felons 
and  murderers  only  for  asserting  our  right  to  taEe 
or  refuse  what  we  deem  an  adequate  reward  for  our 
labor." 

The  outcome  of  the  legal  battle. — This  contest 
was  not  without  effect  upon  judicial  opinion.  In 
time  the  judges  shifted  their  attention  from  the  point 
as  to  whether  a  mere  combination  of  workmen  was 


32  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

a  conspiracy  to  the  question  of  the  means  employed 
by  them  to  obtain  their  ends.  The  right  of  journey- 
men to  combine  was  quite  widely  recognized  as  law- 
ful and  proper ;  but  strikes,  boycotts,  and  attempts  to 
enforce  their  demands  were  still  questioned  and 
made  the  subjects  of  legal  action  against  trade 
unions.  When  strikers  laid  claims  to  their  personal 
liberties  under  the  Constitution,  they  found  much 
popular  support;  but  when  they  were  represented  as 
oppressors  of  the  poor  whom  they  compelled  to  pay 
increased  prices  for  necessities,  they  found  the  pop- 
ular verdict  running  against  them.  So  it  may  be 
said  that  the  outcome  of  the  first  phase  of  the  labor 
battle  at  law  was  the  recognition  of  the  right  to 
combine,  leaving  umon  men  open  to  prosecution  and 
fines  for  employing  methods  that  were  deemed  coer- 
cive by  a  judge  and  jury.  Labor  had  learned  in  this 
process  to  take  a  hand  in  politics,  to  seek  the  support 
of  powerful  partisan  leaders,  and  to  value  the  power 
of  public  opinion  in  times  of  strikes,  prosecutions, 
and  stress. 


^  CHAPTEK  IV 

LABOE'S    FIKST    POLITICAL   EXPERI- 
MENTS 

Changing"  circumstances. — During  the  opening 
decades  of  the  nineteenth  century  several, things  con- 
spired to  draw  labor  into  political  activities.  In 
the  first  place,  property  qualifications  on  the  right  to 
vote,  which  had  been  imposed  by  the  first  state  con- 
stitutions, were  abandoned  and  the  ballot  put  into 
the  hands  of  practically  every  workingman.*  In  the 
second  place,  the  prosecutions  of  labor  unions  in  the 
courts  cf  law  had  driven  workingmen  to  a  concerted, 
action  which  rose  above  trade  and  craft  lines.  In 
the  third  place,  the  industrial  revolution  brought 
about  by  steam  power  and  the  factory  system  was 
making  swift  headway  in  creating  great  cities.  It 
added  rapidly  to  the  number  of  industrial  workers 
and  created  closer  association  among  them.  In  the 
fourth  placC;  the  idea  was  being  advanced  that  the 
hours  of  labor  should  be  fixed  universallv  at  ten 
per  day  by  legislation  rather  than  by  the  painful 
method  of  the  strike. 

*  C.  A.  Beard,  American  Government  and  Politics,  Chap.  V. 

33 


34  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

The  appearance  of  political  action. — The  move- 
ment for  separate  political  action  on  the  part  of 
workmen  started  in  Philadelphia  in  1827.  In  that 
year  the  carpenters  were  on  strike  for  a  ten-honr 
day  and  all  the  organized  workmen  of  the  city  came 
together  in  sympathetic  support  of  the  movement. 
Out  of  this  interest  in  the  carpenters'  strike  came 
a  city-wide  union  of  unions  called  the  ^'Mechanics' 
Union  of  Trade  Associations."  Unorganized  work- 
ers were  urged  to  combine  along  craft  lines  and  join 
the  central  body.  This  new  association  adopted  a 
constitution  in  which  its  objects  were  set  forth: 

The  real  object  of  this  association  is  to  avert,  if  pos- 
sible, the  desolating  evils  which  must  inevitably  arise 
from  a  depreciation  of  the  intrinsic  value  of  human 
labor;  to  raise  the  mechanical  and  productive  classes  to 
that  condition  of  true  independence  and  equality 
which  their  practical  skill  and  ingenuity,  their  immense 
utility  to  the  nation  and  their  growing  intelligence  are 
beginning  imperiously  to  demand;  to  promote,  equally, 
the  happiness,  prosperity  and  welfare  of  the  whole  com- 
munity— to  aid  in  conferring  a  due  and  full  proportion 
of  that  invaluable  promoter  of  happiness,  leisure,  upon 
all  its  useful  members;  and  to  assist,  in  conjunction  with 
such  other  institutions  of  this  nature  as  shall  hereafter 
be  formed  throughout  the  union,  in  establishing  a  just 
balance  of  power,  both  mental^  moral,  political  and  scien- 
tific, between  all  the  various  classes  and  individuals 
which  constitute  society  at  large. 


LABOR'S  POLITICAL  EXPERIMENTS     35 

The  transition  from  this  strong  union  for  common 
purposes  to  union  for  political  action  was  easy  and 
was  soon  made.  In  May,  1828,  the  Mechanics' 
Union  proposed  to  the  several  trade  societies  that 
they  join  in  nominating  candidates  to  "represent  the 
interest  of  the  working  classes"  in  the  city  council 
and  the  state  legislature.  The  proposal  was  enthusi- 
astically approved.  Candidates  were  nominated  and 
a  large  number  of  them,  endorsed  by  either  the  Jack- 
sonian  Democratic  party  or  the  Federal  party,  were 
elected.  Candidates  of  the  other  parties  were  forced 
to  bid  for  the  labor  vote  and  a  distinctly  labor  turn 
was  given  to  the  politics  of  Philadelphia  for  three 
years. 

The  example  set  by  Philadelphia  workmen  was 
soon  followed  in  New  York,  Boston,  Albany,  and 
other  leading  industrial  centers.  Candidates  were 
nominated  and  several  of  them  were  elected  to  local 
offices.  In  N^ew  York  a  meeting  of  mechanics  called 
to  support  the  ten-hour  day  which  had  just  been 
secured  was  transformed  into  a  political  meeting  and 
became  the  germ  of  the  local  party  organization.  In 
JSTew  England  an  effort  was  made  to  combine  all  the 
workers,  including  factory  operatives,  into  one  big 
economic  and  political  union,  under  the  direction  of 
the  New  England  Association  of  Farmers,  Mechan- 
icSj  and  Other  Workingmen.  This  Association  also 
planned  a  nation-wide  economic  and  political  move- 
ment. 


36  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

In  at  least  fifteen  states  local  labor  parties  were 
formed;  at  least  fifty  labor  papers  were  founded  to 
voice  the  aims  and  demands  of  labor;  political  or- 
ganizations along  the  old,  familiar  lines  of  county 
and  ward  committees  and  conventions  were  estab- 
lished; and  radical  agitators  demanding  revolution- 
arv  chane^es  came  to  the  front.  The  radical  move- 
ment  was,  however,  confined  mainly  to  New  York. 
In  N'ew  England  the  labor  leaders  chose  rather  to 
prepare  information  and  programs  for  legislators 
and  to  arouse  popular  support  for  labor^s  cause. 
Political  clubs  were  formed  for  the  study  of  consti- 
tutional, legal,  and  economic  questions.  Here  and 
there  candidates  for  the  Congi-ess  of  the  United 
States  were  heckled  by  labor  leaders;  but  for  the 
most  part  their  actions  were  confined  to  the  local 
and  state  political  field. 

The  philosophy  of  the  political  movement. — In 
the  vast  mass  of  newspapers,  pamphlets,  and  political 
platforms  issued  by  labor  in  this  first  political  ex- 
periment there  appears  a  vague  class  philosophy 
which  betrayed  a  distrust  of,  and  contempt  for,  the 
rich.  Perhaps  as  good  a  statement  of  this  early  labor 
philosophy  as  any  to  be  found  is  in  the  declaration 
of  faith  put  out  by  the  Working-men's  Republican 
Political  Association  of  Penn  Township  in  Philadel- 
phia in  1830.    It  runs  as  follows: 

There  appears  to  exist  two  distinct  classes,  the  rich 
and  the  poor;  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed;  those 


LABOR'S  POLITICAL  EXPERIMENTS     37 

that  live  by  their  own  labor,  and  they  that  live  by  the 
labor  of  others;  the  aristocratic  and  the  democratic;  the 
despotic  and  republican  who  are  in  direct  opposition  to 
one  another  in  their  objects  and  pursuits ;  the  one  aspir- 
ing to  dignified  station  and  offices  of  power,  the  other 
seeking  for  an  equality  of  state  and  advantage ;  the  one 
apparently  desirous  and  determined  to  keep  the  people  in 
ignorance  of  their  rights  and  privileges,  that  they  may 
live  in  ease  and  opulence  at  the  expense  of  the  labor  and 
industry  of  the  others;  the  other  showing  that  they  are 
acquainted  with  the  nature  of  their  rights,  and  are  deter- 
mined to  maintain  and  possess  them ;  the  one  seeking  to 
introduce  and  perpetuate  amongst  us  invidious  and  arti- 
ficial distinctions,  unnatural  and  unjust  inequalities, 
while  the  other  party  declare  that  all  men  are  created 
free  and  equal,  enjoying  a  perfect  uniformity  of  rights 
and  privileges,  and  that  unnatural  and  artificial  distinc- 
tions, independent  of  merit,  are  pernicious  in  their 
effects  and  deleterious  in  their  consequences. 

The  practical  program  of  the  labor  parties. — 

When  the  workingmen  descended  from  the  realm  of 
high  political  speculation  to  state  just  what  it  was 
they  wanted,  they  found  themselves  in  general  agree- 
ment. Their  demands  included  the  ten-hour  day, 
the  restriction  of  child  labor,  the  abolition  of  the 
old  practice  of  hiring  convicts  out  to  contractors  in 
competition  with  honest  and  law-abiding  workmen, 
free  and  equal  public  education,  the  abolition  of  im- 
prisonment for  debt,  the  exemption  "of  wages  and 
tools  from  seizure  for  debt,  the  establishment  of  the 


38  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

right  of  mechanics  to  file  liens  on  property  to  secure 
payment  of  their  wages,  and  the  abolition  of  sweat 
shops  in  homes  and  factories.  To  these  demands  a 
number  of  additional  reforms  were  sometimes  joined, 
including  temperance,  the  abolition  of  lotteries,  the 
abolition  of  capital  punishment,  the  adoption  of 
cheaper  and  simpler  procedure  in  the  courts  of  law, 
the  abolition  of  monopolies,  the  prohibition  of  pri- 
vate banks  empowered  to  issue  paper  currency,  the 
abolition  of  compulsory  militia  service,  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  right  of  the  militiamen  to  elect  their 
own  officers,  votes  for  women,  and  in  many  cases  the 
adoption  of  free  trade  as  the  national  policy  in  the 
place  of  protection. 

The  ten-hour  day. — The  most  prominent  of  all  the 
issues  in  this  early  political  movement  on  the  part 
of  labor  was  the  ten-hour  day.  It  was  supported  by 
labor  on  economic  and  moral  grounds.  Particularly 
was  it  urged  that  long  hours  reduced  workmen  to  the 
status  of  slaves,  with  neither  time  nor  leisure  to 
improve  their  minds  or  enjoy  the  benefits  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

In  opposition  it  was  said  that  the  movement  for 
the  shorter  day  was  foreign  in  origin.  The  Master 
Carpenters  of  Boston,  for  example,  declared  that 
they  could  not  believe  "this  project  to  have  origi- 
nated with  any  of  the  faithful  and  industrious  sons 
of  New  England,  but  are  compelled  to  consider  it 
an  evil  of  foreign  gi'owth  and  one  which  we  hope  and 


LABOR'S  POLITICAL  EXPERIMENTS      39 

trust  will  not  take  root  in  the  favoured  soil  of  Massa- 
chusetts." In  the  second  place  the  ten-hour  day  was 
combatted  on  strictly  moral  grounds.  It  was  urged 
against  it  that  it  would  open  "a  wide  door  for  idle- 
ness and  vice  and  finally  commuting  the  present 
condition  of  the  mechanical  classes,  made  happy  and 
prosperous  by  frugal,  orderly,  temperate,  and  ancient 
habits  for  that  degraded  state,  by  which  in  other 
countries,  many  of  these  classes  are  obliged  to  leave 
their  homes,  bringing  with  them  their  feelings  and 
habits  and  a  spirit  of  discontent  and  insubordination 
to  which  our  native  mechanics  have  hitherto  been 
strangers.'' 

In  spite  of  this  sharp  opposition,  the  ten-hour  day 
made  headway.  Outside  of  Boston  it  had  become 
the  standard  day  for  municipal  employees,  and  pub- 
lic sentiment  was  brought  slowly  around  to  the  view 
that  this  pioposal,  which  seemed  radical  in  an  age  of 
twelve  and  fourteen  hour  days,  was  after  all  quite 
reasonable  and  proper.  At  length,  in  1840,  Presi- 
dent Van  Bur  en  ordered  the  establishment  of  tlie 
ten-hour  day  on  federal  government  work  after  a 
spirited  threat  of  political  action  on  the  part  of  or- 
ganized labor  and  political  managers  in  touch  with 
labor. 

Free  and  equal  education. — Although  tradition 
has  it  that  popular  education  was  one  of  the  original 
doctrines  of  the  American  people,  in  practice  free 
and  universal  education  did  not  get  under  way  until 


40  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

near  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  is 
by  no  means  completely  obtained  at  the  present  time. 
It  is,  in  fact;  largely  to  the  agitation  of  organized 
labor  in  the  twenties  and  thirties  that  we  owe  the 
beginning  of  the  public  school  system.  Labor  leaders 
looked  upon  education  as  the  real  hope  of  working- 
men  in  their  struggle  to  improve  their  lot,  and  in 
1829  public  education  took  its  place  at  the  head  of 
the  labor  reforms  demanded  by  the  Workingmen's 
Party  of  Philadelphia.  In  March,  1834,  the  trades 
imions  of  the  country,  in  a  convention  in  ISiew  York 
City  called  to  consider  the  "professional  monopoly 
of  education,"  urged  the  necessity  of  an  "equal,  uni- 
versal, Republican  system  of  education."  The  next 
vear  the  convention  demanded  the  establishment  of 
free  libraries  in  towns  and  cities  "for  the  use  and 
benefit  of  mechanics  and  workingmen." 

Labor  never  tired  of  pointing  out  the  deficiencies 
in  the  educational  system  then  existing.  It  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  public  schools  were  frankly 
for  the  poor  alone,  and  for  the  pauper  poor  at  that. 
Such  an  ideal  of  education  had  a  charitable  flavor 
odious  to  American  workingmen  and  inconsistent 
with  democratic  pretensions.  It  was  in  their  opin- 
ion on  a  false  basis  and  inadequate,  being  limited  to 
"a  simple  acquaintance  with  words  and  ciphers."  It 
left  the  gi'eat  mass  ignorant  even  of  elementary  mat- 
ters, there  being  1,000,000  child  illiterates  in  the 
country  in  1833,  New  York  alone  having  80,000  of 


LABOR'S  POLITICAL  EXPERIMENTS      41 

them.  The  Pennsylvania  workers  stated  that  in 
their  whole  commonwealth  outside  of  Philadelphia, 
Pittsburgh,  and  Lancaster,  no  public  education  ex- 
isted and  that  in  those  cities  pauperism  was  its  only 
foundation.  They  accordingly  urged  the  establish- 
ment of  infant  schools,  thus  foreshadowing  the  mod- 
ern kindergarten,  manual  training  schools,  and  bet- 
ter instruction  in  order  to  produce  as  far  as  possible 
a  "just  disposition,  virtuous  habits,  and  rational 
self-governing  character.''  The  public  school  system 
advocated  by  them  was  to  be  supported  by  public 
taxation  and  to  be  extended  to  all  classes  alike  so 
thiat  no  pupil  need  be  labeled  a  pauper  in  order  to 
obtain  an  elementary  education. 

Such  a  universal  educational  program,  the  early 
workers  regarded  as  a  panacea  for  ail  ills.  For  ex- 
ample, the  Pennsylvania  workers  in  1830  declared; 

All  history  corroborates  the  melancholy  fact,  that  in 
proportion  as  the  mass  of  the  people  becomes  ignorant, 
misrule  and  anarchy  ensue — their  liberties  are  subverted, 
and  tyrannic  ambition  has  never  failed  to  take  advantage 
of  their  helpless  condition.  .  .  .  Let  the  productive 
classes,  then,  unite  for  the  preservation  of  their  free 
institutions,  and  by  procuring  for  all  the  children  in  the 
Commonwealth  Republican  Education,  preserve  our  lib- 
erties from  the  dangers  of  foreign  invasion  or  domestic 
infringement.  .  .  .  Our  government  is  republican;  our 
education  should  be  equally  so. 


42  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

When  the  leaders  in  the  labor  movement  came  to 
discuss  the  fundamental  ideas  and  purposes  of  edu- 
cation they  found  themselves  very  much  divided. 
One  faction  headed  by  the  educational  reformer  from 
England,  Robert  Dale  Ow^n,  demanded  the  estab- 
lishment of  public  boarding  schools  where  children 
would  receive  equal  food  and  clothing,  as  well  as 
instruction,  where  all  distinctions  of  wealth  would 
be  3\^^ept  away,  and  where  children  would  all  be 
taught  mechanical  and  agricultural  subjects  as  well 
as  literary  and  scientific  subjects.  His  idea  was  to 
use  education  to  train  the  youth  ia  community  liv- 
ing and  useful  work.  Against  him  was  a  large  body 
of  American  labor  leaders  who  advocated  a  more 
purely  literary  education,  such  as  the  well-to-do  en- 
joyed in  their  schools  and  colleges,  an  education 
which  would  give  the  children  of  workingmen  a 
chance  to  rise  in  the  world  and  become  leaders  in 
law,  medicine,  the  church.  They  resented  the 
monopoly  enjoyed  by  the  rich  and  demanded  equal 
opportunity  for  their  children. 

They  were  not,  however,  indifferent  to  the  impor- 
tance of  education  for  citizenship.  Even  instruction 
in  civics  figured  as  a  demand  of  labor  as  early  as 
1830  when  the  workingmen's  party  of  Boston  de- 
manded "a  diffusion  of  knowledge  in  the  elements 
of  those  sciences  which  pertain  to  mechanical  em- 
ployments and  to  the  politics  of  our  common  coun- 
try."    The  Connecticut  workers  objected  to  a  cate- 


LABOR'S  POLITICAL  EXPERIMENTS      43 

chism  devised  by  the  Puritan  ^'ecclesiastical  aristoc- 
racy," and  insisted  further  on  edudation  in  the 
rights  and  duties  of  citizenship.  The  Massachusetts 
workers  in  1834  were  worried  because  "females  in 
an  especial  manner  are  educated  to  consider  all  use- 
ful employments  or  any  avocation  by  which  their 
fair  hands  may  contribute  to  their  own  support,  to  be 
a  positive  degradation."  Thus  the  battle  raged,  Con- 
tributing powerfully  to  the  ferment  and  public 
interest  which  finally  resulted  in  the  foundation  of 
the  free  and  equal  public  school  system. 

The  radical  agitators. — In  this  period  when  labor 
was  giving  serious  attention  to  political  and  social 
questions,  many  radical  agitators  advocating  revo- 
lutionary doctrines  attached  themselves  to  the  labor 
movement.  For  example,  Thomas  Skidmore,  a  me^ 
ehanic,  was  the  leading  radical  propagandist  in  I^ew 
York.  He  declared  in  favor  of  selling  all  private 
property  at  public  auction  and  dividing  the  proceeds 
among  the  people.  As  to  agrarian  matters,  he  ad- 
vocated common  owTiership  of  the  land  and  the 
distribution  of  the  general  proceeds  equally  among 
the  members  of  the  community.  Prances  Wright, 
from  Great  Britain,  one  of  the  first  advocates  of 
woman  suffrage  in  the  'New  World,  opened  her  cam- 
paign of  public  speaking  on  labor  questions  in  this 
period,  arousing  both  intense  opposition  and  warm 
support. 

Criticismj?   of   the   labor   movement. — Even   the 


44  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

milder  demands  of  the  workingmen,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  wild  schemes  of  some  who  declared  them- 
selves the  friends  of  lahor,  hronght  down  upon  the 
heads  of  all  the  lahor  leaders  a  terrihle  storm  of 
ahuse.  They  were  called  "Levelers/'  ^'Moh/'  "Rab- 
ble/' "Dirty  Shirt  Party/'  "Tag,  rag  and  bobtail," 
"Ring  streaked  and  speckled  rabble/'  "Anarchists," 
"Iniidels,"  and  "Communists"  without  much  dis- 
crimination on  the  part  of  their  enemies.  In  vain  did 
the  labor  press  disclaim  the  ideas  that  were  ascribed 
to  workingmen,  attributing  the  abuse  which  they  re- 
ceived to  "aristocratic  party  editors,"  and  the  malice 
of  their  enemies. 

Results  of  Labor's  first  political  experiment. — 
The  results  of  this  first  period  of  political  agitation 
on  the  part  of  labor  are  difficult  to  trace  in  full. 
Many  a  positive  outcome  was  seen,  however,  as  meas- 
ure after  measure  advocated  by  labor  was  eventually 
enacted  into  law  by  the  state  legislatures.  Impris- 
onment for  debt  was  abolished.  The  ten-hour  day 
was  accepted.  The  foundation  of  popular  educa- 
tion was  soon  laid,  and  a  magnificent  public  school 
system  became  in  time  the  object  of  interest  and 
pride  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  Other  reform 
measures  steadily  gained  favor  in  the  public  eye. 
When  the  history  of  American  law-making  is  writ- 
ten, it  will  be  found  that  the  invasion  of  labor  into 
the  field  of  political  philosophy  and  action  in  the 


LABOR'S  POLITICAL  EXPERIMENTS      45 

twenties  and  thirties  was  a  powerful  factor  in  shap- 
ing the  course  of  legislation. 

As  to  success  at  the  polls,  the  labor  movement  had 
several  victories  to  its  credit.  It  elected  many  legis- 
lators and  aldermen;  it  forced  the  old  parties  in 
some  instances  to  nominate  candidates  acceptable  to 
the  labor  party;  it  exerted  a  decided  influence  on  the 
writing  of  the  platforms  of  the  other  parties;  it 
forced  the  politicians  to  give  more  attention  to  the 
matter  of  conciliating  labor;  it  enabled  many  labor 
leaders  to  win  a  position  of  power  in  the  councils  of 
the  old  parties. 

Nevertheless  this  political  outburst  proved  to  be 
temporary.  It  opened  in  1827  and  within  five'years 
had  almost  died  away,  at  least  as  far  as  the  nomina- 
tion of  candidates  was  concerned.  In  many  cam- 
paigns labor  candidates  were  defeated.  At  -best, 
the  results  were  local,  temporary,  and  expensive  in 
time,  money  and  effort.  The  vote  was  a  new  weapon 
to  most  workingmen,  and  the  immediate  results  were 
disappointing  to  their  large  hopes  for  some  panacea. 
The  slings  and  arrows  which  their  opponents  and  the 
conservative  press  used  against  them  were  too  strong 
for  beginners  in  the  art  of  political  management. 
They  were  continually  disconcerted  by  the  politi- 
cians who  used  every  conceivable  weapon  to  weaken 
their  influence.  Their  meetings  were  broken  up  by 
hoodlums  arrayed  by  the  politicians  and  in  some 
cases   by   city   officials.     Seeds   of   dissension   were 


46  AMERIC.\JN[  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

sowTi  in  their  ranks;  they  were  deceived  by  flattery, 
frightened  by  threats,  intimidated  by  abuse,  lured 
away  by  promises  of  office  and  position.  In  the  dis- 
cussions of  political  and  economic  theories,  their 
ranks  were  badly  broken  and  their  power  in  eco- 
nomic bargaining  with  their  employers  materially 
reduced.  At  all  events  after  a  few  years'  emphasis 
on  politics,  labor  turned  again  to  the  field  of  indus- 
trial bargaining  where  simpler  propositions  relative 
to  hours  and  wages  involved  few  abstruse  theories  or 
doctrines. 


CHAPTER  V 
RETURi^  TO  DIRECT  I:N^DUSTRIAL  ACTION 

The  effect  of  politics  on  labor  unions. — Politics 
had  swept  away  much  of  the  machinery  of  the  trade 
unions.  A  class  movement  had  almost  entirely  su- 
perseded the  trade  and  craft  union  movement.  The 
Union  of  Mechanics  of  Philadelphia,  for  example, 
which  had,  in  1827,  fifteen  trade  societies  in  its  or- 
ganization, had  shrunk  to  four  societies.  Organiza- 
tion of  workmen  by  wards  and  counties  had  taKen 
the  place  of  craft  societies.  The  experience  of 
Philadelphia  was  in  a  greater  or  lesser  degree  the 
experience  in  other  cities.  Hence  labor  leaders, 
when  they  turned  away  from  politics  to  industrial 
action,  had  much  of  their  work  to  do  over. 

New  economic  conditions  to  face. — During  the 
years  of  political  agitation,  the  gi'owth  of  the  manu- 
facturing system  had  filled  industry  with  young  ap- 
prentices who  were  insufficiently  trained  and  were 
undercutting  in  wages.  Women  also  were  invading 
industry,  with  the  rise  of  the  factory  system.  In 
1837  there  were  about  one  hundred  occupations  m 

which   women   were  engaged,   working  usually   fOr 

47 


48  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

small  wages  aud  long  hours.  Evidently  all  the 
"females"  were  not  educated  in  idleness  even  in 
New  England.  The  economist,  Mathew  Carey,  es- 
timated that  a  woman  without  children  could  earn  in 
the  needle  trades  no  more  than  $58.50  a  year  and 
a  woman  with  children  no  more  than  $36.40  a  year. 
Ahout  the  same  time  it  was  showTi  that  there  were 
more  than  fifteen  thousand  women  in  the  shoe  in- 
dustry of  Massachusetts,  hundreds  of  them  earning 
only  from  eight  or  ten  cents  a  day  to  forty  or  fifty 
cents.  "In  1831^  in  the  six  N^ew  England  states 
and  in  N'ew  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Maryland,  and  Virginia,  58.1  per  cent  of  all  the 
employees,  including  hand  weavers  in  cotton  mills, 
were  women,  and  seven  per  cent  were  children  under 
twelve  years  of  age."  The  next  year  it  was  esti- 
mated that  two-fifths  of  the  whole  numher  of  persons 
employed  in  factories  in  Massachusetts  were  children 
under  sixteen,  and  it  was  stated  on  good  authority 
that  in  many  places  apprentices  were  taken  from  the 
poor  houses  to  the  factories.  In_axWUmn_,tp__the  in- 
vasion  of  women  and_children,  there  wasthe  invasion 
of  the  immigrants  coming  in  ever  increasing  num- 
bers to  our  shores.  In  1832,  Seth  Luther,  of  Provi- 
dence, R.  I.,  who  was  one  of  tlie  first  to  advocate 
legislation  for  the  benefit  of  labor,  charged  that 
manufacturers  sent  "agents  to  Europe  to  induce  for- 
eigners to  come  here,  to  underwork  American  citi- 
zens, to  support  American  industry  and  the  Ameri- 


RETURN  TO  INDUSTRIAL  ACTION       49 

can  system."  Prison  labor  competitionj  the  whole- 
sale buying  ancTselling,  and  tbe  division  of  work  that 
resulted  from  machine  inventions  to  reduce  skill  it- 
self all  played  their  paii;  in  building  up  an  economic 
labor  movement. 

Rapid  gains  for  trade  unionism. — Although  face 
to  face  with  hard  problems,  the  organizers  of  labor 
unions  made  steady  progress  diiring"  the  thirties, 
helped  by  high  prices  and  fiat  money.  By  1836 
Philadelphia  had  fifty-three  trade  unions;  Newark 
and  Boston  sixteen  each;  Baltimore,  twenty-three, 
and  New  York,  fifty-two.  It  was  then  estimated 
that  union  membership  in  the  seaboard  cities 
amounted  to  300,000.  In  the  meantime  gains  were 
made  in  the  organization  of  the  women  industrial 
workers.  The  men  and  women  in  the  needle  trades 
of  Baltimore  formed  a  joint  society  in  1835.  In 
the  same  year  the  Female  Improvement  Society  of 
the  City  and  County  of  Philadelphia  was  formed, 
including  seamstresses,  tailors,  binders,  milliners, 
and  other  trades.  Injeach  trade  a  committee  was 
formed  which  drew  up  a  wage  scale  and  won  its  ac- 
ceptance by  the  manufacturers.  Women  bookbind- 
ers in  New  York  and  shoe-binders  at  Lynn,  Massa- 
chusetts, organized. 

The  establishment  of  central  labor  bodies. — As 
organization  advanced  by  leaps  and  bounds  in  the 
individual  trades,  there  developed  a  labor  movement 
of  wider  significance — namely,   tlie_  combination  of^ 


50  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

the  trade  unions  of  a  single  city  into  central  bodies 
for  financial  and  moral  support  during  strikes. 
These  central  bodies  repudiated  political  action  and 
bent  to  tlie  task  of  controlling  the  trades  in  such  a 
way  as  to  improve  their  own  economic  conditions. 
In  their  strikes  for  higher  wages  and  shorter  hours, 
they  sought  to  exercise  some  check  on  hasty  and  ill- 
considered  action  on  the  part  of  any  union. 
Through  common  discussion  of  trade  conditions  in 
different  industries,  the  workers  learned  more  about 
the  products  of  ^'unfair"  shops  other  than  their  own 
and  thus  they  were  able  to  introduce  the  boycott  of 
goods  as  well  as  the  boycott  of  the  ^'scab."  The  idea 
of  the  union  label  now  crept  in  so  that  workers  might 
recogmze^ln  tEe~open  market  the  proclucts  of  union 
shops  and  confine  their  purchases  to  such  products 
wherever  possible. 

Attempts  at  national  unionism. — The  labor  move- 
ment of  the  thirties  tried  to  reach  out  toward  still 
wider  and  more  effective  combinations  through  a 
national  organization  of  local  unions.  An  attempt 
in  this  direction  was  made  in  1834  in  New  York 
City  when  a  convention  was  called  from  all  parts 
of  the  country  "to  advance  the  moral  and  intellectual 
condition  and  pecuniary  interests  of  the  laboring 
classes,  promote  the  establishment  of  trades  unions 
in  every  section  of  the  United  States;  and  also  to 
publish  and  disseminate  such  information  as  may  be 
useful  to  mechanics  and  workingmen  generally;  and 


RETURN  TO  INDUSTRIAL  ACTION        51 

to  unite  and  harmonize  the  efforts  of  all  the  pro- 
ductive classes  of  the  country.''  Trade  unionists 
from  the  leading  cities  came  together  in  a  similar 
convention  for  similar  purposes  for  two  succeeding 
years  before  they  realized  that  their  attempt  to  con- 
solidate the  workers  of  the  nation  was  premature. 
They  were  finally  convinced  that  better  groundwork 
wouM'have  to  be  laid  in  local  and  city  organizations 
before  the  national  movement  could  become  power- 
ful and  permanent. 

Attempts  to  unify  single  trades  on  a  national 
scale. — Astute  leaders  saw  that  before  a  national 
movement  built  upon  the  union  of  all  workingmen 
could  be  founded,  a  number  of  separate  craft  organi- 
zations had  to  be  developed;  that  is,  each  trade  had 
to  have  its  local  branches  in  all  manufacturing  cen- 
ters and  these  local  branches  had  to  be  federated  into 
a  national  union  of  the  craft.  Local  unions  of  spe- 
cific trades  in  each  city  had  to  precede  the  union  of 
unions,  or  the  city  federation.  In  the  same  way 
a  national  union  of  all  unions  of  the  single  craft 
had  to  precede  the  national  union  of  all  trade 
unionists.  This  first  secure  step  toward  national- 
ism was  taken  as  the  inevitable  result  of:  (1)  the 
attempt  of  employers  to  ship  their  work  from  or- 
ganized to  unorganized  centers  in  times  of  strikes 
or  high  wage  demands;  and  (2)  the  rapid  growth  of 
manufacturing  in  new  centers.  Craft  union  leaders 
responded  quickly  to  these  forces.     During  1835-36, 


52  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

no  les3  than  five  separate  crafts  or  trades  held  na- 
tional conventions  of  their  own.  These  were  the 
cordwainers,  printers,  comb  makers,  carpenters,  and 
hand  loom  weavers.  The  gi-owth_of_j:he  railway  fa- 
cilitated correspondence  and  travel -^i^d  made  na- 
tiohaTcohventions  possible  even  for  workingmen  with 
small  means. 

Strikes  and  legal  battles. — This  burst  of  new 
unionism  was  accompanied,  as  may  be  imagined,  by 
demands  for  higher  wages  and  by  strikes.  Prices 
were  rismg  with  industrial  prosper ity  and  in  every 
great  industrial  center  workingmen  were  pressing 
their  demands  upon  their  employers.  These  de- 
mands were  met  by  determined  resistance  on  the 
part  of  manufacturers  who  were  now  better  organ- 
ized themselves  and  equipped  with  large  funds  to 
protect  themselves  against  the  unions. 

In  this  wider  swing,  thejinions  also  encountered 
again  prosecutions  for  conspiracies  in  restraint  of 
tra^a  "Indeed"  "aT  systematic  effort  was  made  to 
crush  the  unions  during  the  years  from  1829  to  1842 
when  there  were  at  least  eight  impcniant  prosecu- 
tions for  criminal  conspiracy.  In  some  trials,  the 
workers  won  and  in  others  thev  lost,  but  the  in- 
evitable  agitation  over  th  enaction  of  the  "courts  fol- 
lowed. The  newspapers  were  filled  with  discussions 
of  the  cases.  The  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce 
took  the  regulation  employers'  attitude:  that  trade 
unions  injured  trade  and  commerce,  that  they  were 


EETUBN  TO  INDUSTRIAL  ACTION        53 

not  needed  in  this  country,  and  that  they  merely 
represented  foreign  influences.  The  New  York 
Evening  Post,  on  the  other  hand,  declared  that 
^^men  must  shut  their  eyes  to  events  passing  around 
them  if  they  think  it  is  a  few  foreigners  or  only 
foreigners  that  comprise  our  trades  unions.  It  is 
a  low  calculation  when  we  estimate  that  two-thirds 
of  the  workingmen  in  this  city,  numbering  several 
thousand  persons,  belong  to  it."  The  official  organ 
of  the  Trades  tinions  saw  nothing  but  tyranny  in 
a  decision  of  the  court  against  labor :  ^'If  an  Ameri- 
can judge  will  tell  an  American  jury  that  these 
barriers  which  the  poor  have  thrown  up  to  protect 
themselves  from  the  gnawing  avarice  of  the  rich  are 
unlawful,  then  are  the  mechanics  justified  the  same 
as  our  Fathers  were  justified  in  the  days  of  revolu- 
tion in  'Arming  for  Self-Defense.'  "  This  was  the 
signal  for  another  battle  in  politics  and  at  the  polls. 


CHAPTER  VI 

INDUSTRIAL  PANIC,  POLITICAL  ACTION, 
AND  UTOPIAS 

The  Great  Panic  of  1837. — The  new  unionism  had 
not  gone  far  on  the  road  away  from  political  action 
to  industrial  action  before  a  severe  industrial  crisis 
broke  in  upon  prosperity.  In  J.  837  the  whole  finan- 
cial system  of  the  United  States  collapsed.  England 
was  in  the  throes  of  industrial  distress  at  the  same 
time  and  called  upon  Axaerican  debtors,  particularly 
the  United  States  Bank,  to  pay  their  debts.  Thus 
American  credit  was  shaken  to  the  foundation.  Un- 
able to  dispose  of  their  cotton  cloth,  the  Northern 
mills  shut  down  and  closed  their  warehouses.  To 
cap  it  all  the  wheat  crop  failed  and  the  prices  of 
foodstuffs  soared.  Wages  w^ere  cut  on  all  sides, 
plants  were  closed  and  workers  turned  out  to  starve. 
No  less  than  618  banks  failed  during  the  year. 
WKoIe  towns~lilEeT^averhill,  Massachusetts,  utterly 
dependent  upon  a  single  industry,  like  the  shoe 
industry,  found  their  streets  filled  with  unemployed 
begging  for  bread.  Seamen,  dock  laborers,  skilled 
mechanics,  day  laborers,  all  classes  of  workingmen 

and  women  were  involved. 

54 

\ 


POLITICAL  ACTION  AND  UTOPIAS        55 

Effect  of  the  panic  on  unions. — The  effect  of 
this  industrial  disaster  on  trade  unions  was  instan- 
taneous. Where  union  leaders  were  not  condemned 
as  conspirators  for  organizing  workmen,  they  found 
themselves  powerless  to  hold  together  unemployed 
men  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  wages.  They 
were  forced,  in  spite  of  themselves,  to  accept  reduced 
wages  if  employed,  because  everywhere  outside  of 
the  plants  there  were  hungi-y  workers  ready  to  take 
their  places  in  case  they  struck.  Out  of  work  and 
out  of  funds,  the  unions  fell  to  pieces.  The  remedy 
which  the  leaders  offered  seemed  to  starving  work- 
men no  remedy  at  all.  Locals,  city  federations,  and 
national  craft  unions  all  felt  the  depression.  A  few 
of  them  by  desperate  struggles  survived  the  storm; 
but  the  labor  press  disappeared  and  there  are  left 
scant  records  of  those  troublous  days  to  tell  the 
story  of  the  disaster  that  befell  trade  unionism. 

The  swing  to  politics  again. — The  almost  com- 
plete destruction  of  the  unions  left  the  labor  field 
once  more  to  the  reformers,  politicians,  and  *4ntel- 
lectuals"  who  had  other  cures  for  the  evils  that  beset 
labor.  Although  many  labor  men,  in  this  period, 
turned  to  plans  for  forming  co-operative  societies  of 
workmen  and  to  futile  experiments  with  the  com- 
munist land  coloniesjjt  was  politics  and  reform  that- 
occupied  the  center  of  the-stage^--Suffering  from  the 
r^^ges  of  a  panic,  the  workers  sought  a  remedy  for 
that  disease.     They  found  that  hundreds  of  railway, 


56  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

gas,  coal,  banking,  turnpike,  and  bridge  companies 
had  been  chartered  in  recent  years,  and  so  they  con- 
cluded that  such  monopolies  were  the  chief  cause  of 
their  troubles.  They  declared  that  the  monopolies 
drove  employers,  master  mechanics,  and  small  trades- 
men out  of  business.  Asmany  of  these  companies 
made  a  practice  of  paying  their  employees  in  notes 
that  had  to  be  cashed  at  banks  at  a  tjonsiderable  dis- 
count, all  the  corporations  and  the  banks  came  in  for 
a  full  share  of  denunciation  on  the  part  of  labor. 
Thus  the  courts,  corporations,  and  banks  fell  under 
the  displeasure  of  the  leaders  in  the  industrial  world. 
The  old  political  feeling  kindled  by  the  events  of  the 
late  twenties  flamed  up  again. 

The  political  movement  of  the  panic  period  was 
directly  connected  with  the  older  political  efforts 
in  'New  York.  Indeed,  in  1835,  the  workmen  of  that 
state  had  held  a  convention  attended  by  ninety-three 
delegates  and  had  formed  a  political  party  "sep- 
arate and  distinct  from  all  existing  parties  and  fac- 
tions in  this  state."  They  rallied  to  their  new  party 
(nicknamed  "The  Loco  Focos")  a  considerable  force 
and  put  into  the  field  a  complete  county,  state,  and 
congressional  ticket.  They  were  able  to  defeat  the 
local  Democratic  organization,  Tammany  Hall,  in 
a  spirited  campaign,  making  their  drive  mainly  on 
the  monopolies  and  banks.  By  this  radical  action 
they  divorced  Tammany  from  the  financial  and  aris- 
tocratic elements  of  New  York  Citv  and  forced  it  to 


POLITICAL  ACTION  AND  UTOPIAS       57 

rely  henceforward  mainly  upon  the  labor  vote  for 
its  strength. 

This  political  movement  spread  to  Pennsylvania, 
A  mass  meeting  was  shortly  held  in  Pittsburgh,  and 
a  trade  union  orator  declared  that  the  time  had  come 
for  labor  to  turn  to  political  action,  "grades  unions 
and  associations  for  the  benefit  of  workingmen  are 
^^@od/'_he  said,  ^'so  far  as  they  go.  They  will  at 
least  ameliorate  the  effects  of  a  bad  state  of  society, 
but  they  are  not  adequate  to  the  removal  of  the 
causes  of  oppression.  This  removal  must  be  accom- 
;glished  by  the  ballot  boxes."  The  movement,  how- 
ever, exhausted  itself  in  local  politics  and  did  not 
emerge  into  the  field  of  national  issues. 

The  outburst  against  the  alien. — The  unemploy- 
ment, or  ^ 'over-supply"  of  labojc,  which  resulted  from 
the  panic  of  1837,  also  revived  the  old  feeling  of 
native  Americans  against  European  immigrants.  Not- 
withstanding the  economic  distress  in  America  the 
stream  of  immigration  increased  almost  steadily 
from  year  to  year.  In  1847  over  80,000  aliens 
arrived,  and  seven  years  later  the  number  reached 
427,000,  to  the  great  alarm  of  native  workingmen. 
As  many  of  the  newcomers  were  Irish  Catholics, 
labor  leaders  were  worried  lest  an  attack  be  made 
upon  their  new  public  school  movement  in  the  inter- 
ests of  religious  schools.  In  1847  a  N'ative  Ameri- 
can^party  was  formed  to  uphold  Americanism  against 
alien   influence.      It  won   some  labor  support   ajad 


58  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

elected  a  few  meinbers  of  Congi'ess  from  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania.  A  presidential  candidate  was 
also  put  forward  in  1856  and  a  large  vote  was  polled 
in  the  industrial  states  as  well  as  the  South  and  West. 
This  movement  made  no  deep  impression  upon  labor 
politics  and  was  without  lasting  significance  in  the 
labor  world. 

Labor  and  the  public  lands. — During  the  period 
of  industrial  depression  and  unemployment  the 
attention  of  labor  was  forcibly  dra^vn  to  the  oppor- 
tunities for  independence  offered  by  the  public 
lands  of  the  West  which  awaited  settlement.  In 
1 840,  George  Henry  Evans,  who  had  been  promi- 
nent in  the  labor  political  movement  in  New  York, 
published  his  Origin  and  Progress  of  the  Working 
Mens  Party  in  New  Yorh,  and  began  to  advocate 
the  division  of  the  land  among  the  people  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  the  gift  of  nature  and  belonged 
of  right  to  all.  Not  long  aftei-ward  he  formed  an 
"Agrarian  League,"  with  the  avowed  object  of  stop- 
ping the  sale  of  public  lands  to  companies  and  specu- 
lators and  securing  the  apportionment  of  the  lands 
in  farms  and  small  lots  among  actual  settlers  with- 
out charge.  The  idea  was  taken  up  all  over  the 
country  and  given  various  forms.  At  last  it  was 
made  a  national  issue,  winning  the  support  of  the  Re- 
publican party  in  1860  and  bearing  fruit  in  the  en- 
actment of  the  famous  Free  Homestead  law  of  1862. 

Prominent  labor  leaders  sei-ved  on  the  commit- 


POLITICAL  ACTION  AND  UTOPIAS        59 

tees  of  the  agrarian  party  and  were  influential  in 
directing  the  attention  of  the  country  to  land  re- 
form. The  support  given  by  the  labor  leaders  was 
strengthened  by  the  influence  of  the  radical  German 
leaders  who  had  been  driven  out  of  monarchical 
Germany  after  the  revolution  of  1848.  "If  once  the 
soil  is  free,  then  every  honest  workingman  will  be 
welcomed  as  a  blessing  to  our  republic/'  declared 
a  German  communist,  Kriege.  Indeed,  the  land 
reformers  became  so  pow^erful  in  New  York  that 
they  threatened  to  dominate  the  labor  unions,  and 
a  resolution  was  introduced  to  exclude  them  from 
membership  in  the  unions.  Writing  in  the  New 
York  Herald  on  this  point  in  1850,  James  Gordon 
Bennett  prophesied  the  end  of  the  labor  movement 
if  the  radical  agTarians  were  not  expelled: 

A  motion  will  be  made  to  limit  the  membership  to  the 
trades  and  thus  to  purge  the  body  of  men  who  have  no 
right  to  sit  in  it.  If  this  motion  be  carried,  it  will  make 
a  clean  sweep  of  the  politicians  and  socialists ;  and  there 
will  be  some  chance  of  the  sound  wisdom  of  the  honest 
tradesmen  having  fair  play  to  work  out  a  practical  re- 
dress of  any  real  grievance  under  which  they  may  labor. 
But  we  fear  the  sinister  influences  are  too  strong  in  the 
body,  and  the  schemes  too  numerous,  to  allow  that  prop- 
osition to  prevail.  If  it  should  be  defeated,  then  all  hope 
of  accomplishing  anything  useful  through  this  body  is 
lost,  and  it  will  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  few  wire-pullers, 
who  will  turn  it  to  their  own  advantage,  and  sell  the 


60  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

trades  to  the  highest  bidder.  Then  will  be  acted  over 
again  the  farces  already  played  in  this  city  in  which  the 
trades  have  been  made  the  ladder  of  needy  or  ambitious 
politicians,  who  kicked  them  away  the  moment  they 
gained  the  summit  of  their  aspirations. 

One  year  after  this  prophecy  the  agrarians  were 
expelled.  The  trade  unions  cast  aside  the  reformers 
and  went  over  to  Tammany  Hall,  giving  political 
strength"  to  tEat  organization^ 

Socialistic  theories. — About  the  same  time  that 
the  agrarians  attached  themselves  to  the  labor  move- 
ment, another  strong  group  of  reformers  appeared 
on  the  horizon :  the  Utopian  Socialists,  followers  of 
the  great  French  leader,  Fourier,  wh.o  was  intro- 
duced to  Aiuerica  by  Albert  Brisbane  in  his  book 
on  the  Social  Destiny  of  Man,  published  in  1840. 
Sponsors  for  this  new  appeal  to  labor  denied  the 
theory  of  the  class  struggle  against  employers  and 
laughed  at  political  action  on  the  part  of  labor.  For 
the  capitalist  system  of  production  and  the  isolated 
farm,  the  Fourierists  proposed  to  substitute  the  com- 
munist colony  in  which  labor  would  be  associated 
with  science  and  all  things  would  be  owned  in  com- 
mon. Prominent  intellectuals  in  the  country,  like 
Horace  Greeley,  Charles  A.  Dana  and  John  G.  Whit- 
tier,  moved  by  the  poverty  and  misery  of  the  masses, 
took  up  with  this  radical  idea.  Papers  were  founded, 
sermons  preached,  lecturers  sent  through  the  coun- 
try, and  many  communities  organized  with  Brook 


POLITICAL  ACTION  AND  UTOPIAS       61 

Farm  as  the  model.  None  of  them  lasted  very  long. 
This  ^^utopian"  socialistic  scheme,  as  it  is  called, 
did  not  prove  attractive  to  labor  although  it  was 
widely  discussed  in  labor  circles.  Trade  unionists 
were  not  revolutionists.  They  did  not  want  to  found 
Fourierist  colonies.  They  preferred  to  win  conces- 
sions from  employers  in  the  form  of  shorter  hours 
and  better  wages,  and  protective  laws  to  cover  their 
organizations.  Neither  did  the  regular  unionist 
take  kindly  to  co-operative  and  profit-sharing  schemes 
which  the  "intellectuals''  offered  them  as  panaceas. 
They  had  no  capital  to  embark  on  production  on  their 
own  account,  and  they  were  suspicious  of  profit  shar- 
ing. They  were,  however,  constantly  beset  on  every 
hand  by  the  exponents  of  new  and  radical  ideas  and 
considerable  energy  continued  to  be  diverted  from 
the  organization  and  management  of  unions  into  dis- 
putes over  economic  theories  and  land  reform. 


CHAPTER  YII 

TRADE  U:NnONISM  AND  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Industrial  prosperity  revives  unionism. — In  tlie 
late  forties,  industry  was _t]iorouglily  revived:  fires 
"were  lighted,  wheels  turned,  and  the  machinery  of 
production  w^as  set  in  motion.  The  effect  of  the 
discovery  of  gold  in  California  was  magical.  Manu- 
facturers drove  ahead  with  new  zeal,  producing 
goods  in  vaster  supplies  than  ever  before.  With  open- 
ing trade,  the  demand  for  labor  increased  and  the 
prices  of  commodities  rose.  Thiswasjust  the  oppor- 
tunityfor  labor  unions  of  the  regular  type.  Promptly 
shedding  most  of  the  theories  that  had  agitated  them 
in  the  idler  days  of  unemployment,  they  took  up 
again  the  routine  of  organization  with  enthusiasm. 
^'The  skilled  trades  settled  down  to  the  cold  busi- 
ness of  getting  more  pay  for  themselves  by  means 
of  permanent  and  exclusive  organizations.  Here 
begins^_diat_sepaxation^^  common_Jabor  which 
eventually  was  to  raise  the  pay  of  the  skilled 
mechanic  Tar~above  the  level  of  immigrant  competi- 
tion and  to  distinguish  American  unionism  from 
that  of  any  other  country.  Instead  oT  experiments 
in  co-operation  or  leadership  by  humanitarians  we 

62 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       63 

now  find  ruJes  for  apprenticeshipj  the  closed  shop^ 
minimum  wage^  time  and  method  of  payment,  initia- 
tion fees,  dues,  funds  for  strike  henelits,  union  em- 
ployment  ofiioes   and   the   exdlusion   of   employers,  j 
politicians  and  friends  of  labor  not  actually  work-; 
ing  at  the  trade." 

The  old  locals  that  had  not  perished  in  the  panic 
of  1837  took  on  renewed  life,  new  locals  were  estab- 
lished as  industry  spread,  and  new  national  unions 
of  specific  trades  were  founded.  The  Typographical 
Union  created  a  national  organization,  holding  a 
national  convention  in  1850  and  perfecting  its  plans. 
Seven  vears  later  the  Moulders'  International  Union 
and  the  ISTational  Union  of  Machinists  and  Black- 
smiths were  organized.  The  Stone  Cutters  entered 
the  national  field  in  1853,  and  the  Hat  Finishers  the 
next  year. 

In  this  period  special  efforts  were  made  to  bring 
intcTlEe  union  fold  the  alien  workmen.  In  some 
insifahces  men"6f  several  nationalities  joined  a  single 
union  as  in  the  case  of  the  Operative  Bakers'  Union 
with  its  American,  German,  English,  Scotch  and 
Irish  members.  In  other  cases  it  was  found  easier 
to  form  unions  composed  of  members  of  a  single 
race  to  expedite  the  transaction  of  business  and  avoid 
the  tedium  of  translating  proceedings  back  and  forth 
into  the  different  languages.  At  the  same  time  at- 
tention was  given  to  drawing  the  newly-arrived 
immigrant  into  the  union  ranks.     The  Xew  York 


64  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

joiners  and  cabinetmakers  in  1850  ''moved  and 
resolved  that  handbills  of  the  Association  should 
be  posted  in  the  Emigrant  boarding  houses  in  order 
to  inform  the  newly  arrived  journeymen  where  they 
are  to  direct  themselves  in  order  to  get  work  at 
adequate  wages  and  to  prevent  their  getting  into 
the  clutches  of  the  working  usurers."  A  motion 
was  also  adopted  that  like  advertisements  should  be 
sent  to  the  newspapers  in  Germany.  All  such  efforts 
told  upon  the  foreigner  and  brought  him  to  the  sup- 
port of  American  unions. 

New  labor  leadership.— With  the  gi-owth  of 
unionism,  "pure  and  simple/'  came  labor  leaders  of 
national_standing  and  influence,  men  of  great  force 
as  organizers,  writers,  and  strike  directors.  Among 
them  were  W.  H.  Sylvis  of  the  Iron  Moulders  and 
Jonathan  Eincher  of  the  Machinists.  The  manage- 
ment of  societies  embracing  thousands  of  members, 
scattei'ed  from  coast  to  coast,  and  carrying  on  con- 
stant negotiations  with  employers  over  tecTmical 
points  called  for  business  ability  and  statesmanlike 
skill  of  the  highest  order. 

Strikes. — The  decade  between  1850  and  the  Civil 
War  was  marked  by  strikes  of  gi'eater  frequency  and 
magnitude,"  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  col- 
lective bargains  were  becoming  more  and  more  com- 
mon in  the  leading  trades.  In  the  two  years  1853-54, 
it  is  estimated  there  were  about  400  separate  strikes, 
twenty-five  or  thirty  being  on  at  one  time  in  New 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       65 

York  City.  [Nearly  every  known  craft  from  boiler- 
makers  to  printers  and  coachmen  was  involved,  and 
scarcely  a  city  escaped.  In  addition  to  the  usual 
disputes  in  New  York,  Boston,  Baltimore,  there 
were  strikes  in  Cincinnati,  New  Orleans,  St.  Louis, 
and  San  Francisco. 

The  panic  of  1857. — ^liile  labor  was  absorbed  in 
extending  its  organization  and  waging  strikes  to  win, 
higher' wages7  as  prices  rose  and  the  prosperity  of 
the  country  advanced,  another  industrial  panic  came.    . 
to  paralyze  business^  in  1857.     The  conditions  which 
hill  always  accompanied   such   disasters   again   ap- 
peared  in   the  labor   world :   unemployment,   wage  "^^ 
reductions,  loss  of  membership,  dissolution  of  local   I 
unions,  financial  weakness  and  hopelessness  among    > 
those  that  survived.  ,' 

The  Civil  War  and  the  attitude  of  labor. — Before 
industry  had  recovered  from  the  disasters  of  1857 
the  Civil  War  between  the  North  and  the  Southern 
slave  states  burst  upon  the  nation.  Labor  was  forced 
to  take  a  stand.  Hitherto  no  uniform  position  had 
been  taken  by  labor  leaders.  Some  of  the  workers, 
especially  the  mill  girls  of  Massachusetts,  were  aboli- 
tionists; others  were  indifferent;  still  others  sought 
passionately  to  avoid  a  clash  of  arms*  The  moulders 
of  Kentucky,  the  fiioulders  of  Pennsylvania  under 
the  leadership  of  Sylvis,  and  other  organized  work- 
ers agitated  for  a  compromise  which,  in  their  opinion, 
would  avoid  bloodshed;   namely,  the  limitation  of 


66  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

slavery  to  the  area  it  tlien  occupied.  They  were 
opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery  hut  anxious  to 
avoid  a  fratricidal  war.  They  tried  to  take  the 
slavery  question  out  of  Congress. 

Others  jwere  violently  opposed  to  Lincoln  and  the 
new  Repuhlican  party  which  was  agitating  the  slav- 
ery question.  Some  lahor  leaders  refused  to  grow 
excited  about  slavery.  More  than  one  of  them  said 
that  the  negro  slave  was  better  off  than  the  starving 
wage  workers.  In  this  they  did  but  echo  the  view 
of  Southern  slave  owners  who  held  that  masters  pro- 
vided good  food  and  clothing  for  their  slaves  and 
took  care  of  them  in  sickness  and  old  age;  while 
under  the  factory  system  workers  were  paid  just 
enough  to  live  on  and  turned  out  to  starve  in  hard 
times  and  in  their  old  age.  When  the  war  actually 
broke  out,  however,  and  the  call  came  for  soldiers, 
organized  labor  ceased  its  active  opposition,  the  lead- 
ing labor  opponent  of  the  war,  Sylvis,  volunteering 
and  serving  as  an  officer  in  a  company  composed  of 
his  trade  union  brothers.  All  through  the  North 
labor  rallied  to  the  support  of  the  government7 
^USecToOfie  war'oii  industry. — The  effect  of  the 
war  on  industry  was  felt  at  once.  The  demand  for 
war  supplies,  iron7  steel,  and  all  kinds  of  manufac- 
tured goods,  was  enormous.  Prices  advanced, 
farmers  became  prosperDusr^discontinuing  the  at- 
tempts they  had  recently  made  at  organization  idong 
trade   union    lines.      Merchants   secured    huge   con- 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       67 

tracts  and  by  judicious  management  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  gi-eat  fortunes.  Industries  prospered_un- 
der  the  high  tariffs  that  were  enacted,  and  accumu- 
lations of  capital  made  possible  the  rapid  expansion 
of  industry. 

Effect  on  labor. — Wage  earners  were  the  one  class 
that  remained  at  the  same  level  of  comfort  or  actually 
f eir  into  a  worse  condition.  They  were  now  em- 
ployed; ¥ut  their  wages  did  not  keep  pace  with  the 
rapidly  rising  prices  of  food  and  clothing.  'Merchants 
drove  hard  bargains  with  manufacturers  in  order 
that  their  profits  on  war  contracts  might  be  large. 
To  get  contracts  at  all  manufacturers  were  thus 
forced  to  keep  wages  down.  The  opening  of  trunk 
railway  lines  enabled  the  wholesale  contractor  to 
operate  over  a  national  area  and  to  bring  unorgan- 
ized labor  into  competition  with  organized  labor. 
Stoves  from  Detroit  were  displayed  beside  stoves 
from  Albany  in  the  stores  of  St.  Louis,  and  prices 
became  the  determining  factor  in  survival.  Even 
the  government  made  no  effort  in  the  placing  of  its 
contracts  to  guarantee  standard  living  and  working 
conditions  in  the  industries  tliat  executed  the  orders. 
Industries  expanded -SQ..  rapidly  and  the  number  of 
workmen  increased  so  fast  that  the  old  unions  were 
dazed  for  a  time.  ~"  ^ 

Labor  rises  to  the  necessity  of  the  times. — ^Labor 
leaders  confronted  by  such  extraordinary  war  con- 
ditions saw,  however,  that  they  must  increase  their 


6S  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

efforts  to  extend  the  number  of  local  unions  and 
enlarge  the  membership  if  they  were  to  cope  with 
the  situation.  Slowly,  too,  wages  rose  on  account 
of  the  unprecedented  demand  for  labor.  With  a  view 
to  upholding  wages  and  avoiding  a  crisis  when  the 
labor  market  was  glutted  by  returning  soldiers,  the 
leaders  redoubled  their  labors  toward  the  end  of  the 
war.  The  following  table,  showing  the  growth  of 
labor  organization  from  December,  1863,  to  Decem- 
ber, 1864,  tells  the  story  of  their  achievements: 

Nm mher  of  Unians 

State                                                        1863  1864 

Connecticut 2  6 

Delaware 1 

Illinois 1  10 

Indiana 3  17 

Kentucky  2  8 

Maine 1  7 

Maryland 1 

Massachusetts 17  42 

Michigan   4  9 

Missouri   4  9 

New  Hampshire 3  5 

New  Jersey 4  10 

New  York.. 16  74 

Ohio   4  16 

Pennsylvania    15  44 

Rhode  Island 1  7 

Tennessee 2 

Vermont 1 

Virginia  1  1 

Wisconsin    1 

Total 79  270 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       69 

The  organization  of  local  unions  was  followed  by 
the  establishment  of  more  national  unions.  "Dur- 
ing the  period  of  intense  business  activity  which 
lasted  from  1863  to  1866  .  .  .  ten  national  unions 
sprang  up  in  two  years:  the  Plasterers'  N^ational 
Union,  the  N"ational  Union  of  Journeymen  Curriers, 
the  Ship  Carpenters'  and  Caulkers'  International 
Union,  the  ^National  Union  of  Cigar  Makers,  the 
Coach  Makers'  International  Union,  the  Journey- 
men Painters'  N'ational  Union,  N'ational  Union  of 
Heaters,  Tailors'  N'ational  Union,  Carpenters'  and 
Joiners'  International  Union,  and  Bricklayers'  and 
Masons'  International  Union."  At  the  close  of  the 
sixties  there  were  in  existence  at  least  thirty-two 
national  trade  unions.  Those  that  assumed  the  title 
^'^international"  did  so  to  include  the  locals  organ- 
ized in  Canada. 

The  total  membership  of  the  trades  unions  at  the 
time  is  a  matter  of  dispute,  but  our  most  authorita- 
tive estimate  places  it  at  about  300,000  in  1872. 
The  existence  of  120  daily,  weekly,  and  monthly 
journals  testified 'to"l;lre  vitality  of  the  movement. 
Pincher's  Trades'  Review,  edited  by  the  secretary 
of  the  national  machinists'  and  blacksmiths'  union, 
was  one  of  the  ablest  of  these  papers,  and  national  in 
its  appeal,  advocating  trade  unionism,  pure  and  sim- 
ple, shorter  hours,  and  co-operative  production.  The 
leading  labor  men  of  the  period  were  W.  H.  Sylvis, 
of  the  moulders'  union;  R.  F.  Trevellick,  of  the  ship 


70  AMERICAxN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

carpenters  and  caulkers;  Thomas  Phillips,  of  the 
shoemakers' ;  and  Ira  Steward,  the  eight-hour  agita- 
tor. Some  of  them  were  newcomers  in  the  United 
States  and  all  of  them  were  unfamiliar  with  the  his- 
tory of  labor  in  this  country,  naively  regarding  them- 
selves as  pioneers  in  many  things  which  were  really 
as  old  as  the  nation. 

While  extending  the  number  of  their  locals,  the 
trade  unionists  w^ere  busy  pressing  their  demands 
for  higher  wages  upon  their  employers.  The  follow- 
ing extract  from  Fincher's  Trades  Review,  of 
March,  18C4,  gives  at  a  glance  an  idea  of  the  kind 
of  activity  that  engaged  the  attention  of  labor  leaders 
during  the  war: 

The  State  and  Metal  Roofers  are  organizing  and  it 
is  thought  they  will  demand  $3  a  day.  The  Segar  mak- 
ers are  preparing  to  secure  better  wages.  The  Long- 
shoremen have  demanded  $2.50  per  day  of  nine  hours, 
from  the  7th  inst.  The  Jewelers  have  decided  to  add 
25  per  cent  to  their  wages.  The  Brickla3^ers  demanded 
$2.50  per  day.  House  Carpenters  demand  $2.50  per  day. 
Painters  $2.50  per  day,  Dry  dock  practical  painters 
$2.50  per  day,  Pliunbers  $2.50  per  day,  Blue  Stone  Cut- 
ters and  Flaggers,  $2.50  per  day.  The  Piano  Forte 
makers  demand  an  increase  of  25  per  cent  on  former 
wages.  The  Iron  Moulders  ask  for  15  per  cent  advance. 
The  Cabinetmakers  and  Tailors  are  also  moving.  The 
Carvers  ask  15  per  cent  addition.  The  Shipwrights  are 
preparing  for  a  struggle.    The  Brush  makers  have  been 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       71 

conceded  25  per  cent  advance  in  New  York  by  all  em- 
ployers but  three.  A'\nieelwrights  and  Blacksmiths  are 
in  council.  The  Bookbinders  are  organized.  The  Coop- 
ers have  obtained  their  increase  recently  sought  and  will 
make  no  inmiediate  demand  for  change.  The  Coach 
Painters  and  Coach  Trimmers  will  shortly  remodel  their 
list  of  prices.  Several  of  the  trades  mentioned  above 
have  obtained  the  wages  sought  by  amicable  treaty ;  and 
let  us  hope  that  all  may  succeed  without  the  resort  of  a 
strike. 

The  alien  contract  inunigfration  law  of  1884. — 

In  order  to  meet  the  -S.ti'ingencj  in  the  labonnarket 
and  to  counteract  the  gTowing  power  of  organized 
laboTj^jCongress  passed  in  l?6"i_an  act  antliorizing 
persons  to  make  contracts  in  foreign  countries  to 
import  laborers  into  the  United  States,  and  bind 
them  to  work  for  a  term  until  their  passage  was 
paid  out  of  their  wages.  This  law  was  a  part  of  the 
price  which. farmers  paid  the  manufacturers  for  the 
Homestead  Act  of  1862  which  gave  free  land  to  actual^ 
settlers  on  government  domain  and  thus  drew  labor 
out  of  the  eastern  mills  to  the  western  farms.  Now 
ihe^mamifacturers-were  auttarized  to  scour  Europe-, 
for  laborers  to  take  the  places  of  those  who  went  into 
agriculture  and  to  fill  the  new  places  created  by  the 
growth  of  industry.  On  the  passage  of  the  immigra- 
tion act  the  American  Emigrant  Company  was  in- 
corporated in  Connecticut  "to  import  laborers,  espe- 
cially skilled  laborers,  from  Great  Britain,  Germany, 


72  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

Belgium,  France,  Switzerland,  Norway,  and  Sweden 
for  the  manufacturers,  railroad  companies,  and  other 
employers  of  lahor  in  America."  The  wages  of 
laborers  were  to  be  attached  until  the  expenses  of 
their  importation  were  paid.  This  company  was 
composed  of  bankers,  employers  and  politicians,  and 
was  endorsed  by  leading  governors,  senators  and  edi' 
tors — men  like  Chief  Justice  Chase  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court;  Gideon  Welles,  Secretary  of 
the  N'avy ;  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the  great  Brooklyn 
preacher,  and  Charles  Sumner,  senator  from  Massa- 
chusetts. Their  advertisement  stated:  ^'A  system  so 
complete  has  been  put  in  operation  here  that  miners, 
mechanics  (including  workers  in  iron  and  steel  of 
every  class),  weavers,  and  agricultural,  railroad,  and 
other  laborers,  can  now  be  procured  without  much 
delay,  in  any  numbers,  at  reasonable  cost."  The 
result  of  this  law  was  immediate.  The  stream  of 
imm.igi-ation  began  to  flow  with  extraordinary  rapid- 
_jt^  Labor  now  complained  that  it  was  face  to  face 
with  a  growing"  ^DOT  and  dependent  population" — 
one  whose  ^abject  condition  in  their  own  country 
made  them  tame,  submissive,  ^peaceable,  orderly  citi- 
zens,' who  are  willing  to  work  for  fourteen  and  six- 
teen hours  a  day  for  what  capital  sees  fit  to  give 
them." 

The  National  Labor  Union — its  program  and  con- 
gresses (1866-72). — All  things  conspired  together  in 
war  time  to  draw  organized  labor  into  closer  unioia 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       73 

on  a  national  scale.  By  the  end  of  the  Civil  War 
every  important  city  had  its  city  trades  assembly 
representing  all  the  organized  crafts.  It  had  co- 
operative stores,  free  libraries  and  reading  rooms, 
legislative  lobbies,  and  a  labor  press.  It  held 
periodical  meetings  and  helped  those  unions  engaged 
in  contests  for  better  conditions.  There  were,  as  we 
have  seen,  about  thirty  powerful  national  unions  of 
specific  trades  and  several  of  tiiese  trades  had  their 
own  journals. 

The  time  seemed  ripe  for  a  grand  consolidation  of 
all  labor's  forces,  such  as  had  been  tried  thirty  years 
before  without  permanent  results.  So  in  J^64 
an  attempt  was  made  to  federate  the  city  trades 
assemblies.  A  national  convention  was  called  for 
this  purpose,  the  idea  being  to  form  a  national  body 
on  the  order  of  the  "General  Confederation  of  Labor 
in  France  in  which  trades  assemblies  (Bourses  du 
Travail)  and  national  trade  unions  are  represented 
on  an  equal  footing."  The  main  object  of  the  pro- 
moters of  this  organization  was  to  abolish  strikes 
and  establish  trade  agreements  with  employers  in 
their  place.  In  explanation  of  their  objects,  the 
promoters  declared  "that  the  capitalists  or  employ- 
ers will  cease  to  refuse  our  just  demands  and  will, 
if  we  make  any  unreasonable  demands,  condescend 
to  come  down  on  a  level  with  us  and  by  argument 
and  proof  show  us  that  our  demands  are  unjust, 
but  this  will  have  to  be  explained  to  the  satisfaction 


74  AIVIERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

of  the  trades  assembly  of  the  city  in  which  the 
demand  was  made.*' 

W.  H.  Sylvis  was  the  prime  mover  in  this  new 
attempt  at  nationalization,  and  he  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  seeing  a  lai^ge  and  spirited  '^Industrial 
Assembly  of  N^orth  America"  held  at  Louisville  in 
1864.  Two  years  later,  namely  1866,  at  Baltimore, 
the  assembly  organized  the  National  Labor  Union 
the  same  year  that  an  international  labor  congi*ess 
met  at  Geneva.  ''In  1867  the  American  organiza- 
tion met  at  Chicago,  the  European  at  Brussels.     In 

1869  the  American  organization  met  at  Philadelphia 
and  sent  a  delegate  to  the  European  meeting  at  Basle 
to  discuss  with  it  the  question  of  European  immigra- 
tion and  its  competition  with  American  labor.     In 

1870  the  Franco-Prussian  War  interrupted  the  Euro- 
pean congi'ess  and  the  next  two  years  witnessed  the 
dissolution  of  both  organizations  through  internal 
dissensions — the  American  throuo^h  the  anta^ronism 

O  <_J 

of  the  political  actionists  and  trade  unionists  pure 
and  simple ;  the  European  through  the  antagonism  of 
socialists  and  anarchists."  Socialists  were  the  in- 
vaders in  the  case  of  the  American  movement;  the 
anarchists  were  the  invaders  of  the  European  move- 
ment, started  by  Karl  Marx  and  other  socialists. 
For  six  years,  1866  to  1872,  there  was  a  National 
Labor  Union  in  America  and  each  yeai*  a  congress 
was  held,  dwindling  to  a  handful  at  last. 

The  basis  of  the  National  Labor  Union  was  the 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       75 

city  assemblies  of  trade  unions.  It  did  not  repre- 
sent strict  craft  unionism,  therefore.  Moreover,  it 
did  not  confine  its  efforts  to  the  promotion  of  that 
type  of  union  effort.  Sylvis,  who  was  himself  a 
workingman  and  a  good  unionist,  was  deeply  inter- 
ested in  freeing  labor  from  the  control  of  capital- 
ists by  means  of  co-operative  shops  in  which  the 
workmen  supplied  their  own  capital  and  shared 
the  profits.  In  1867  he  declared:  ^^At  last,  after 
years  of  earnest  effort  and  patient  waiting  and 
constant  preaching,  co-operation  is  taking  hold  upon 
the  minds  of  our  members  and  in  many  places  very 
little  else  is  talked  about."  A  year  later  he  was  still 
urging  the  superior  merits  of  co-operation  as  com- 
pared with  unionism,  insisting  that  unionism  made 
war  upon  the  effects  of  industrial  distress  and  did 
not  get  aS~TB"e' cause,  which  was  ~in~fac!;'  the  wages 
system  itself.  Sylvis's  ovm  union,  the  iron  moulders, 
made  a  nuiuber  of  experiments  in  co-operative  pro- 
duction, opening  ten  or  more  co-operative  foundries 
which  failed.  Similar  attempts  were  made  during 
this  period  by  other  trades,  bakers,  shipwrights, 
machinists,  tailors,  printers,  needle  women,  etc.  The 
unsuccessful  strikes  carried  on  in  1867-68  were  fol- 
lowed in  many  instances  by  the  establishment  of 
independent  co-operative  shops  in  which  the  pro- 
ducer was  to  receive  ^^the  full  product  of  his  labor 
and  the  wages  struggle  was  to  be  eliminated." 
One  of  the  chief  difficulties  in  the  way  of  these 


76  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

co-operative  shops  was  that  of  securing  capital  or 
^creditJ~'an3~"so  the  S^ationaT'LafeOf  Union  became 
interested  in  banking  and  currency.  It  therefore 
entered  into  relations  with  the  farmers,  the  Grangers, 
and  the  other  agrarians  who  were  in  favor  of  large 
issues  of  paper  money,  "greenbacks,"  such  as  had 
been  issued  during  the  Civil  War. 

Soon  after  the  farmers  appeared  on  the  edge  of 
the  new  national  labor  movement,  women  arrived 
on  the  scene.  In J.86.8.wPiuen  came  as  "delegates" 
to  the  New  York  convention.  These  delegates  were 
ii<>^-_3lLwor^iiigwomen.  Susan  B.  Anthony,  the 
prominent  suffragist,  Mrs.  Mary  Kellog  Putnam  and 
Mrs.  Mary  McDowell  came  as  representatives  of 
workingwomen's  protective  associations.  Elizabeth 
Cady  Stanton  was  finally  admitted  from  a  woman 
suffrage  society  with  the  understanding  that  only  he. 
humanitarian  interest  in  labor  was  endorsed.  When 
it  came  to  choosing  an  assistant  secretary  for  the 
National  Labor  Union  the  convention  selected  a  mem- 
ber of  the  laundry  workers'  union  from  Troy,  Kate 
Mullaney.  She  was  also  made  national  organizer  for 
women. 

About  the  same  time  the  negro  question  loomed 
on  the  horizon  of  the  labor  movement.  Negroes  had 
always  been  involved  in  labor  questions  in  the  North, 
and  with  emancipation  their  relations  to  craft  unions 
and  the  labor  movement  became  more  pressing  than 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       77 

ever.  Realizing  the  two-fold  sigiiificaiice_of  the  negro 
as  a  laborer  and  a  voter,  the  National  Labor  Union 
decided  that  the  negro's  conciliatory  attitude  should 
be  met  half  way.  In  1869  the  negi'oes  were  trying 
to  form  a  national  association  of  their  own  at  Wash- 
ington. The  National  Labor  Union  thereupon 
resolved  that  "the  interests  of  the  workingmen  in 
America  especially  requires  that  the  formation  of 
trades  unions,  eight-hour  leagues,  and  other  labor 
organizations  shall  be  encouraged  among  the  colored 
race."  Accordingly  it  sent  a  friendly  delegate  to 
the  negro  convention,  Richard  Trevellick,  a  promi- 
nent and  trusted  labor  leader.  ^Th^  negroes  wanted 
co-operation  with  white  labor,  but  gave  special  atten- 
tion to  petitioning  Congress  (l)"Tor  the  exclusion  of 
coolie  lab6F~and  ~(2)  i'c)r  a' Homestead  Act  giving 
land~To"  negi'oes  in  the  South,  They  also  asserted 
equal  rights  for  themselves,  with  white  workingmen, 
approved  co-operatiqn,  endorsed  the  eight-hour  day, 
but  went  no  further.  On  account  of  their  allegiance 
to  the  Republican  party  they  did  not  seek  a  close 
alliance  with  the  National  Labor  Union,  which  was 
radical,  independent,  and  sometimes  socialistic,  at 
least  in  part  of  its  leadership. 

Among  the  many  subjects  to  which  the  National 
Labor  Union  gave  special  attention  was  the  Chinese 
question.  Chinese_  exclusion  was  the  first  demand 
of  jCaliforniji_  unionists  and  was  pressed  on  every 


78  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

occasion  until  finally  the  Congi-ess  of  the  United 
States  passed  the  Clnn^se_,excli\sion^  act  of  1882. 
Among  the  otEer  demands  of  the  National  Lahor 
Union  was  the  eight-hour  day  and  Congress  passed 
a  law  establishing_difil_a&Jii^.jtanjdarji„da^^  fed- 
eral employees  in  1868.  When  certain  federal 
officers  reduced  wages  with  the  shortening  of  hours, 
the  N^ational  Labor  Union  began  to  lobby  to  have 
the  losses  in  wages  made  good;  and,  in  1872,  a  cam- 
paign year,  Congress  yielded  to  the  pressure.  The 
National  Union  also  demanded  the  establishment  of 
agbveFnment  bureau  of  labor  which  was  finally  pro- 
vided f or  JiL.  18^4,  and  expanded  into  the  Depart- 
ment of  Labor  in  1913. 

The  decline  of  the  National  Labor  Union. — 
Unluckily  for  the  N^ational  Labor  Union,  most  of 
the  co-operative  experiments  on  the  part  of  working- 
men  failed,  and  the  political  gains  made  by  agita- 
tion did  not  seem  important  or  spectacular  enough 
to  hold  the  rank  and  file.  The  pure  and  simple 
untonis^ts  began  to  desert  and  by  1872  the  Union 
ceased  to  function,  having  fallen  almost  entirely  into 
the  hands  of  political  reformers.  Another  reason 
for  its  failure  was  its  foundation  upon  city  trades 
assemblies  rather  than  upon  the  regular  national 
craft  unions.  City  assemblies  were  more  interested 
in  their  local  problems  and  in  local  politics  than  in 
national  affairs.     They  found  slight  advantage  in 


TRADE  UNIONISM  AND  CIVIL  WAR       79 

the  national  enterprise.  More  than  ten  years  were 
to  elapse  before  Mr.  Samuel  Gorapers  and  his  labor 
colleagues  were  to  found  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  upon  an  enduring  basis. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

A  DECADE    OF   PANICS,   POLITICS,    AISTD 
LABOE  CHAOS  (1872-81) 

A  new  attempt  at  unionism  pure  and  simple. — 

The  failure  of  the_jjrational  Labor  Union  induced 
the  leaders  of  four  big  national  craft  unions — the 
iron  moulders,  machinists,  coopers,  and  typographers 
— to  attempt  nationalism  on  new  lines.  In  1873 
they  called  a  convention  in  "which  every  protective 
labor  organization  was  invited  to  take  part  through 
delegates.  The  new  federation  was  not  designed  for 
political  purposes.  The  call  declared:  ^'The  organ- 
ization, when  consummated,  shall  not,  so  far  as  in 
our  power  to  prevent,  ever  deteriorate  into  a  political 
party  or  become  the  tail  to  the  kite  of  any  political 
party,  or  a  refuge  for  played-out  politicians,  but 
shall  to  all  intents  and  purposes  remain  a  purely 
industrial  association,  Kvihg  "for  its  sole  and  only 
objecr"terj?ecuTTn^to  the  producer  his  full  share  of 
all  he  produces.*^  Capital  was  not  to  be  attacked 
nor  viewed  as  robbery;  agrarian  ideas  were  dis^ 
claimed;  and  all  relation  to  communists  disowned. 
Theoretical  panaceas  were  thrown  aside  and  certain 

practical  propositions  for  legislative  action  advanced : 

80 


POLITICS  AND  LABOR  CHAOS         81 

modification  of  conspiracy  laws  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  labor  a  better  legal  status,  exclusion  of  the 
Chinese,  restriction  of  monopolies,  reduction  of  the 
high  cost  of  living,  establishment  of  a  federal  bureau 
of  statistics,  legalization  of  co-operative  enterprises, 
and  regulation  of  apprenticeship.  The  convention 
when  assembled  went  on  record  in  favor  of  straight 
unionism,  politics  to  be  resorted  to  only  when  other 
remedies  failed.  A  vigorous  campaign  for  the  new 
organization  was  launched  at  once,  with  a  view  to 
making  "The  Industrial  Brotherhood,"  as  it  was 
called,  a  power  in  the  industrial  world. 

The  panic  of  1873. — Just  as  the  new  unionist 
organization  was  launched  the  panic  of  1873  Hwept 
over"^'6  ct)untry,"opening~a.  six-year  period  of  indus- 
trial distress,  strikes,  labor  disorders,  and  disasters 
to  unionism.  With  the  paralysis  of  industry  employ- 
ers began  to  reduce  wages  and  these  reductions  were 
followed  by  prolonged  and  desperate  strikes.  Within 
seven  years,  between  1873  and  1880,  wages  in  the 
textile  districts  were  cut  to  almast  one-half  the 
former  standard.  Similar  action  was  taken  in  other 
industries.  Unemployment  became  so  widespread 
that  strikes  to  maintain  wages  were  perilous;  where 
they  were  attempted,  lockouts  usually  followed. 
Black  lists  and  prosecutions  intimidated  labor  leaders. 
A  successful  national  organization  was  out  of  the 
question.  The  number  of  effective  national  craft 
unions  fell  from  about  thirty  to  eight  or  nine  and 


82  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

even  they  were  in  dire  financial  straits.  Where  the 
national  nnion  did  not  vanish,  its  membership  de- 
clined; the  machinists  lost  two-thirds  of  their  mem- 
bers; the  cigarmakers,  four-fifths;  and  the  coopers 
nearly  six-sevenths.  It  is  estimated  that  the  trade 
union  membership  in  New  York  City  fell  from 
44,JClOO--feo -5,000:  Til  Cincinnati  it  dropped  to  about 
a-fch-ousaiid. 

Violence. — In  the  anthracite  coal  regions  of  Penn- 
sylvania, a  spirit  of  violence  appeared.  After  "the 
long  strike~wEicir'Iasted  from  December,  1874,  to 
June,  1875,  and  ended  in  the  almost  total  destruc- 
tion of  the  union,  a  'crime  wave'  swept  over  the 
anthracite  counties."  A  series  of  murders  was  at- 
tributed to  an  inner  ring  of  managers  who  controlled 
the  lodges  of  the  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians  in  the 
anthracite  district.  These  secret  manipulators  were 
known  as  the  "Mollie  Maguires."  Their  desperate 
deeds  terrorized  the  region  until  the  authorities  of 
the  state  made  a  number  of  arrests  and  convictions. 
Ten  ring  leaders  were  executed  and  fourteen  were 
sent  to  prison. 

Two  years  later  a  number  of  railroad  strikes  were 
precipitated_by  the  action  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
Railroad  Company  in  cutting  wages.  They  spread  to 
other  lines  and  far  into  the  Southwest,  involving 
nearly  all  the  great  systems.  In  Pittsburgh  the 
rioters  got  possession  of  the  city  and  millions  of 
dollars'  worth  of  property  was  destroyed.     Federal 


POLITICS  AND  LABOR  CHAOS         83 

troops  were  called  out  for  the.  first  time  in  industrial 
disputes.  Labor  leaders  urged  upon  workmen  tlie 
desirability  of  preparing  to  resist  by  military  organ- 
ization the  interference  of  the  militia  and  regular 
troops  in  labor  disputes,  and  cities  answered  with 
armories  for  the  better  management  of  troops.  In- 
junctions were  issued  by  federal  judges  forbidding 
workingmen  to  strike  and  their  leaders  to  manage 
strikes.  Thus  labor  for  the  first  time  collided  with 
the  military  and  judicial  branch  of  the  government 
on  a  large  scale.  To  many  contemporary  observers, 
including  John  Hay,  who  had  been  Lincoln's  sec- 
retary, it  seemed  that  society  was  about  to  dissolve 
in  civil  struggles.  It  was  then  that  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  of  whom  we  shall  hear  more  later,  became 
successful  in  secretly  organizing  workingmen  to  com- 
bat the  forces  of  capital  in  the  industrial  arena. 

The  entrance  of  politics. — The  emergence  of 
leaders  who  sought  relief  in  political  actioTT'wasiTgiiin 
^a"  "TIabor~  was"  disorgamzed,  unemployment  and 
poverty  were  widespread,  labor  believed  itself  out- 
lawed, and  unionism  seemed  to  offer  no  safeguards 
against  such  distress.  Workingmen's  parties  conse- 
quently began  to  appear  in  the  industrial  regions 
and  strong  labor-political  organizations,  mainly 
socialistic  in  character,  spread  through  E'ew  York, 
Pennsylvania,  and  Ohior-^^^ecret  societies  took  the 
place  of  open  unions.  Underground  pfopifgand*- 
iEq5f6a"d  in  "aH"grear  industrial  centers.     The  farmers 


84  AIMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

likewise  suffering  from  low  prices  for  their  produce 
appealed  to  labor  to  join  in  political  action. 

Indeed,  before  the  panic  of  1873  descended  upon 
the  country  (namely  in  the  campaign  of  1872), 
there  appeared  a  party  of  Labor  Reformers  who  held 
their  convention  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  and  made  an 
appeal,  though  with  slight  effect,  to  the  labor  vote. 
The  farmers  organized  their  N^ational  Greenback 
party  in  1876  to  favor  paper  money  as  the  remedy. 
Two  years  later  the  farmers  and  representatives  of 
labor  met  in  Cleveland  to  form  a  JSTational  Party, 
whicE~drewTO  its  support  some  ^^radical  business  men 
aitdriawyers:"^  The  platform  of  the  new  party  de- 
clared that  '^throughout  our  entire  country  the  value 
of  real  estate  is  depreciated,  industry  paralyzed, 
trade  depressed,  business  incomes  and  wages  reduced, 
unparalleled  distress  inflicted  upon  the  poorer  and 
middle  ranks  of  our  people,  the  land  filled  with 
fraud,  embezzlement,  bankruptcy,  crime,  suffering, 
pauperism,  and  starvation.  .  .  .  This  state  of  things 
has  been  brought  about  by  legislation  in  the  interest 
of  and  dictated  by  money-lenders,  bankers,  and  bond 
holders."  The  distinctly  labor  remedies  proposed 
were  shorter  hours  of  labor,  national  and  state 
bureaus  of  labor  and  industrial  statistics,  the  prohibi- 
tTQiLjcxf-contr^^  prison  labor,  and  the  prohibition  of 
the  importation  of  servile  labor.  The  enormous  vote 
polled  by  the  farmer  and  labor  candidates  for  Con- 
gi'ess  in  1878  frightened  the  politicians  of  the  two 


POLITICS  AND  LABOR  CHAOS  85 

older  parties  into  believing  that  a  political  revolu- 
tion had  come. 

Many  labor  leaders-gave  up  unionism  and  went 
over  entirely  to  political  action.  Fehrenbach,  the 
president  of  the  machinists^  and  blacksmiths'  national 
union,  entered  the  Ohio  legislature  in  1876  and  two 
years  later  was  holding  a  federal  office.  H.  J.  Walls, 
secretary  of  the  moulders'  national  union,  became  in 
1877  the  first  commissioner  of  the  Ohio  bureau  of 
labor  and  statistics.  Foran,  the  president  of  the 
coopers'  union,  after  experiments  in  politics,  was 
admitted  to  the  bar,  and  later  entered  Congress. 
The  workingmen's  party  formed  in  California,  under 
the  leadership  of  Dennis  Kearney,  went  into  politics 
on,  the  main  issue  of  Chinese  exclusion.  The  more 
radical  trade  unionists  worked  at  local  political 
organization,  founding  socialistic  and  communistic 
societies  with  a  view  to  entering  the  national  field 
later. 

So  the  decade  of  the  seventies  closed  with  trade 
unrohrsm,  pure  and  simple,  demoralized  in  organiza- 
tion and^"spirrfc7~and  politics  occupying  the  center 
orrhe  stage."  H^prosperity  hau-  not  returned  in  1879 
and  the  farm.ers  an^d  workingmeii  had  hot  fallen  "apart 
once  more,  a  powerful  labor-agrarian  party  might 
have  played  an  important  role  in  national  politics. 
Prosperity  was  a  signal  for  quietism  on  the  part  of 
the  farmers  and  for  efforts  at  organization  to  increase 
wages  on  the  part  oi*  labor. 


CHAPTEE  IX 

RISE    OF   THE   AMERICAN    FEDERATION 

OF  LABOR 

Prosperity,  the  labor  market   and  unionism. — 

With  the  return  of  prosperity,  the  money  market 
eased,  trade  expan(le3"7Foni  shore  to  shore,  aided  by 
immense  grants  of  public  lands  to  railways,  indus- 
tries responded  quickly  to  the  new  demands  for  com- 
modities, and  immigrants  began  to  pour  into  the 
country  in  ever  larger  streams.  Labor  now  saw  both 
an  opportunity  and  a  menace:  an  opportunity  to 
participate,  through  renewed  union  organization,  in 
the  new  prosperity,  and  a  danger  from  a  flood  of 
unskilled  and  skilled  immigrants. 

New  leaders  arose  among  skilled  workers,  in  the 
persons  of  Adolph  StTassef"and"BamiTer~Oompers  of 
tlieTcigar  makers'  union,  one  of  the  few  uniong  that 
had  survived  the  panic,  after  a  desperate  battle  with 
competition  from  tenement  house  cigar  manufactur- 
ing. They  bent  their  first  efforts  toward  a  reorgan- 
ization of  their  own  union  on  a  British  pattern. 
Under  their  plan  (1)  complete  authority  over  the 
locals  was_given  to  the  (Officers  of  the  international 

union;  (2J.  membership  dues  were  increased  to  build 

86 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR       87 

up  a  large  benefit  fund;  and  (3)  a  benefit  system 
was  created  to  tide  the  union  over  periods  of  indus- 
l;rial  depression!  "TBy  a  system  oTfun^  equalization, 
the  well-to-do  locals  were  obliged  to  help  weaker 
locals  in  time  of  crisis.  Here  was  statesmanship  in 
organization  of  a  new  order — practical,  businesslike, 
and  substantial. 

At  the  time  this  reorganization  was  effected  there 
were  in  the  country  the  following  national  trade 
unions ; 

Typographical  (formed  in  1850) ;  Hat  Finishers 
(1854);  Iron  Holders  (1859);  Locomotive  Engineers 
(1863)  ;  Cigar  Makers  (1864)  ;  Bricklayers  and  Masons 
(1865)  ;  Silk  and  Fur  Hat  Finishers  (1866)  ;  Railway 
Conductors  (1868);  Coopers  (1870);  German  Typo- 
graphia  (1873) ;  Locomotive  Firemen  (1873)  ;  Horse- 
shoers  (1874)  ;  Furniture  Workers  (1873)  ;  Iron  and 
Steel  Workers  (1876)  ;  Granite  Cutters  (1877)  ;  Lake 
Seamen  (1878);  Cotton  Mill  Spinners  (1878);  New 
England  Boot  and  Shoe  Lasters  (1879). 

There^  was' one  single  women.^s  national  union,  the 
Daughters  of  St.  Crispin,  a  union  of  women  shoe- 
makers organized  in  1869  and  in  close  co-operation 
wilh  the  men  of  the'trade  called  the  Knights  of  St. 

Crispin^ Lit-er  1880  th^-number  of  national  unions 

increased  and  membership  enlarged  rapidly.  By 
1884  there  were  at  least  300,000  members  in  good 
standing. 


88  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

The  Federation  of  Organized  Trades  and  Labor 
Unions  (1881) — the  precursor  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor. — In  1881  a  number  of  labor  lead- 
ers, dissatisfied  witb  the  state  of  labor  unions  in  the 
country,  called  a  convention  at  Terre  Haute,  Indiana, 
which  in  turn  called  a  second  convention  that  met  at 
Pittsburgh  in  the  same  year.  At  Pittsburgh  there  was 
formed  a  Federation  of  Organized  Trades  and  Labor 
Unions  of  the  United  States  and  Canada.  A  large 
and  varied  group  of  delegates  was  in  attendance. 
One  hundred  and  seven  of  them  represented  eight 
national  and  international  unions;  forty-two  were 
from  local  trades~unions ;  three  were  from  district 
assemblies  of  the  Knights  of  Labor.  The  platform 
embodied  political  demands;  such  as,  corapukory 
education  laws,  abolition  of  conspiracy  laws  as  ap- 
plied to  trade  unions,  anti-contract  immigration 
legislation,  a  protective  tariff.  The  drift  of  opinion, 
in  the  new  federation  was,  however,  steadily  toward 
pure  unionism.  At  the  third  convention  of  the  Fed- 
eration held  in  New  York  in  1883  Samuel  Gompers 
was  elected  chairman  of  the  organization  and  of  its 
legislative  committee.  The  organization  languished 
on  account  of  lack  of  funds  and  lack  of  interest  in 
legi-slation. 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor  (1886). — In 
1886  five  labor  leaders,  including  A.  Strasser  of  the 
cigar  makers  and  W.  H.  Foster,  secretary  of  the 
Federation  of  Organized  Trades  and  Labor  Unions, 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR       89 

called  a  conference  at  Philadelphia,  which  in  ttirn 
summoned  a  labor  convention  to  meet  at  Columbus, 
Ohio,  in  December,  1886.  To  this  convention  came 
the  delegates  of  the  Federation  of  Organized  Trades 
and  Labor  Unions  and  a  large  number  of  delegates 
from  other  labor  organizations.  On  the  second  day 
an  amalgamation  was  effected  of  the  Federation  and 
other  labor  bodies  represented.  The  amalgamation 
took  the  name  of  ^^The  American  Federation  of 
Labor.''  Practically  the  whole  trade  union  move- 
ment of  the  country  was  there  assembled  for  common 
action,  "the  delegates  o£_twenty-five  organizations 
representing  a  membership  of  J5.1 6^469  members  in 
good  standing,"  it  was  claimed.  The  great  national 
unions,  like  the  iron  and  steel  workers,  the  boiler- 
makers,  tailors,  coal  miners,  and  printers,  were  now 
brought  into  a  permanent  federation.  The  basic  unit 
of  the  new  Federation  of  Labor  was  the  national  or 
international  trade  union,  local  unions  being  allowed 
representation  only  while  they  were  not  organized 
nationally.  A  permanent  revenue  was  provided  hj 
charter  fees  and  by  membership  dues,  a  per  capita 
tax  being  laid  upon  every  unionist  in  good  standing. 
"Samuel  GonTpers  was  elected  president  of  the  new 
Federation,  a  post  which  he  has  held  down  to  the 
present  time  with  the  exception  of  one  year.  From 
the  first  he  insisted  upon  the  national  craft  or  trade 
union  as  the  basis  of 'the  organization,  and  upon  a 
sound  financial  policy,  including  benevolent  and  pro- 


90  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

tective  features  and  funds.  In  his  second  presidential 
address  lie  said :  "It  is  noticeable  that  a  great  reac- 
tion and  steady  disintegration  is  going  on  in  most 
all  organizations  of  labor  which  are  not  formed  upon 
the  basis  that  the  experience  of  past  failures  teaches, 
namely,  the  benevolent  as  well  a^the  protective  feat- 
ures in  the  unions."  ^  The  test  of  this  principle  came 
in  the  next  panic — 1892 — when  the  unions  for  the 
first 'timrelh"ffierr  history  held  their  membership  and 
strength  during  an  industrial  depression.  Of  this 
experience  Mr.  Gompers  observed :  ''It  is  noteworthy 
that  while  in  every  industrial  crisis  the  trade  unions 
v/ere  literally  mowed  down  and  swept  out  of  exist- 
ence, the  unions  now  in  existence  have  manifested, 
not  only  the  powers  of  resistance,  but  of  stability  and 
permanency."  This  result  he  ascribed  to  the  system 
of  high  dues  and  benefits. 

Firm  adherence  to  fixed  policy. — From  the  gen- 
eral lines  of  his  fixed  policy  as  to  the  basis  of  organ- 
ization and  financial  methods,  Mr.  Grompers  never 
departed.  To  them  he  stuck  through  ''thick  and 
thin."  His  tenacity  was  early  tested  in  the  great 
Homestead  strike  of  1892  when  the  Carnegie  Steel 
Corporation  demanded  the  dissolution  of  the  Amal- 
gamated Association  of  Iron  and  Steel  Workers  who 
had  resisted  a  wage  reduction.  A  pitched  battle  be- 
tween the  strikers  on  the  one  hand  and  Pinkerton 
detectives  on  the  other  hand,  and  a  long  strike  in- 
volving much  bitterness,  ended  in  the  defeat  of  the 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR        91 

unionists.  The  country  was  then  in  the  throes  of 
another  industrial  depression,  and  many  baffled  labor 
leaders  urged  new  tactics.  To  the  question,  "Shall 
we  change  our  methods  ?"  Mr.  Gompers  replied : 

Many  of  our  earnest  friends  in  the  labor  move- 
ment .  .  .  look  upon  some  of  the  recent  defeats  and  pre- 
dict the  annihilation  of  the  economic  effort  of  organized 
labor — or  the  impotency  of  the  economic  organizations, 
the  trade  unions— to  cope  with  the  great  power  of  organ- 
ized wealth.  .  .  .  It  is  not  true  that  the  economic  ef- 
fort has  been  a  failure  nor  that  the  usefulness  of  the 
economic  organization  is  at  an  end.  It  is  true  that  in 
several  instances  they  have  been  defeated;  but  though 
defeated,  they  are  not  conquered ;  the  very  fact  that  the 
monopolistic  and  capitalist  class  having  assumed  the 
aggressive,  and  after  defeating  the  toilers  in  several  con- 
tests, the  wage-workers  of  our  country  have  maintained 
their  organizations  is  the  best  proof  of  the  power,  influ- 
ence and  permanency  of  the  trade  unions.  They  have 
not  been  routed,  they  have  merely  retreated,  and  await  a 
better  opportunity  to  obtain  the  improved  conditions 
which  for  the  time  they  were  deprived  of.  .  .  .  What  the 
toilers  need  at  this  time  is  to  answer  the  bitterness  and 
vindictiveness  of  the  oppressor  with  Organization. 

The  development  of  American  Federation  policy. 

— In  the  course_of  a  few  years  after  the  foundation 
of  the  Federation  in  1886,  a  number  of  very  definite 
lines  of  ~ip6licy  and  connection  were  formed.  These 
may  Jie  briefly  enumerated  as  follows : 


92  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

1.  Avoidance  of  radical  economic  theories.  Al- 
though  Mr.  (iompers  once  remafkedTEaTT^  believe 
witli  the  most  advanced  thinkers  as  to  ultimate  ends, 
including  the  abolition  of  the  wage-system,"  he  did 
not  allow  his  theories  to  interfere  with  the  immediate 
ends  of  trade  unionism.  The  American  Federation 
accepted  the  prevailing  mode  of  production :  private 
ownership  of  land,  private  ownership  of  natural 
resources,  private  ownership  of  industries,  and  pro- 
duction for  profit.  The  Federation  sought  to  obtain 
for  its  membership  within  the  existing"~^stem  of 
prqductTQh7~high  wages,  short  hours,  and  favorable 
conditions  of  work  generally. 

2.  The  eight  hour  day.  The  ideal  of  the  eight 
hour  day,  which  had  been  agitated  long  before  the 
Civil  War,  was  taken  up  by  the  Federation  with  great 
zeal  as  a  unifying  force.  The  cry  was  a  slogan 
which  went  to  the  heart  of  every  workingman.  It 
needed  no  abstruse  philosophy  of  society  or  economics 
by  way  of  explanation.  Mr.  Gompers'  constant  argu- 
ment was:  ^^The  answer  to  all  opponents  of  the 
reduction  of  hours  of  labor  could  well  be  given  in 
these  words:  ^that  so  long  as  there  is  one  man  who 
seeks  employment  and  cannot  obtain  it,  the  hours 
of  labor  are  too  long.'  Hundreds  of  thousands  of 
our  fellows  through  ever-increasing  inventions  and 
improvements  in  the  modern  methods  of  production, 
are  rendered  'superfluous'  and  we  must  find  employ- 
ment for  our  wretched  Brothers  and  Sisters  by  re- 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR        93 

ducing  the  hours  of  labor  or  w©  shall  be  overwhelmed 
and  destroyed.'^  The  argument  had  passed  from 
"leisure"  to  "making  work." 

3.  Co-operation  with  the  Natio7ial  Civic  Fedsior 
tion.  Tn  keeping  with  its  economic  policy  and  its 
"avoidlhce  of  entangling  political  alliances,  the  Fed- 
eration naturally  sought  to  win  from  the  public  and 
employers  sympathy  for  its  policy  of  upholding 
labor  standards.  It  therefore  welcomed  the  forma- 
tion, in  1900,  ofjhe  N"ational  Civic  Federation^  an 
association  ofjrominejit  business  men,  financiers,. 
a,nd  professional  people.  The  idea  of  the  new  Asso- 
ciation was  to  promote  the  acceptance  of  trade  union- 
ism as  an  essential  part  of  the  modern  industrial 
system  and  to  advocate  trade  agreements  between 
employers  and  unions  as  the  peaceful  solution  of 
industrial  conflicts.  Some  labor  leaders  joined  the 
Civic  Federation  with  enthusiasm,  counting  these 
new  friends  as  powerful  aids  in  winning  public  ap- 
proval for  unionism.  Th^^meetings  of  the  IJadonal 
Civic  Federation,  its  literature,  and  its  activities  in 
behalf  of  the  peaceful  adjustment  of  wage  disputes 
contributed  very  considerably  to  the  success  of  the 
Federation  of  Labor. 

4:^  The  trade  agreement.  The  national  organiza- 
tion of  labof~a'nd  tne  national  organization  of  em- 
ployers developed  together,  the  activities  of  one  group 
instigating  and  stimulating  the  activities  of  the  other. 
On*both  of  them  the  extension  of  the  market  operated 


94  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

to  widen  the  field  of  their  organization  and  work. 
Before  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  several  trades  were 
well  enough  organized  on  both  sides  to  permit  rep- 
resentatives of  capital  and  labor  to  enter  into  nego- 
tiations relative  to  working  conditions  throughout 
the  country. 

The  method  of  negotiation  by  a  committee  repre- 
senting labor  and  a  committee  representing  employ- 
ers was  called  '^collective  bargaining."  The  bargain 
that  resulte'd'  from •  sucli  aTl^gaEiatTon  was  called  the 
^'trade  agreement. "_  This  trade  agi-eement  bound 
both  sides  alike — all  workers  in  the  trade  and  all  em- 
ployers. In  several  of  the  trades  the  organization 
was  complete  enough  on  both  sides  to  be  enforced 
without  serious  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
unorganized  elements. 

The  trade  agreement  presupposes  a  national 
union  in  the  trade,  a  large  membership,  and  funds 
with  which  to  wage  strikes.  Such  a  condition  com- 
pels a  hearing  on  the  part  of  employers.  It  pre- 
supposes also  that  the  industry  is  highly  centralized 
so  that  the  employers  can  enforce  the  contract  on 
their  pai-t  against  even  the  small  employers  who 
wish  to  cany  on  their  business  in  their  own  way. 
It  is  not  built  upon  arbitration  but  upon  the  theory 
of  equality  between  partners  to  the  contract.  Trade 
after  trade  has  accepted  the  trade-agreement  method 
of  adjusting  disputes.  In  most  cases,  however^  the 
agreement  has  been  reached  only  after  prolonged 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR       95 

strikes  and  lockouts  and  heavy  losses  on  both  sides, 
demonstrating  to  each  of  the  two  contestants  the 
strength  of  the  other.  The  trade  agreement  has  be- 
come a  rather  distinct  feature  of  the  American Jabor 
'ToovenieJiT.  It  does  not  represent  any  revolutionao^y 
tendency  in  fndustry.  It  is  based  on  the  idea  that 
labor  shall  accept  the  capitalist  system  of  production 
and  make  terms  of  peace  with  it.  It  has  been  called 
"opportunisticjia^cgainiiig"  as -distinct  from,  revolu- 
tionary  class  warfare  as  waged^by  the  radiiial  unions 
of  continental  Europe. 

The  trade  agreement  is,  of  course,  not  always 
national  in  scope.  It  is  frequently  local  and  adapted 
to  local  conditions.  An  example  of  a  local  agree- 
ment is  afforded  by  the  building  trades'  ^^bargain" 
effected  in  New  York  City  in  December,  1919.  The 
agreement  provided  for  a  forty-four  hour  week  and 
a  definite  wage  schedule.  Among  the  terms  of  the 
understanding  are  the  following  provisions : 

The  unions  as  a  whole,  or  as  a  single  union,  shall  not 
order  any  strike  against  a  member  of  the  Building 
Trades  Employers'  Association,  neither  shall  any  num- 
ber of  union  men  leave  the  work  of  a  member  of  the 
Building  Trades  Employers'  Association,  nor  shall  any 
member  of  the  Building  Trades  Employers'  Association 
lock  out  his  employees;  and,  should  any  union,  or  the 
members  of  any  union,  violate  this  agreement,  and  the 
violation  is  not  discontinued  within  one  week  from  the 
time  of  notice  of  said  violation  is  sent  to  the  Building 


96  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

Trades  Council,  it  shall  not  be  considered  a  violation  if 
the  Building  Trades  Employers'  Association,  or  any 
member  or  members  thereof,  proceed  to  man  the  work 
with  such  men  as  can  be  secured,  or,  in  case  of  such  vio- 
lation, if  the  Building  Trades  Employers'  Association 
locks  out  the  members  of  the  defaulting  union,  or  de- 
clares a  general  cessation  of  work. 

It  is  further  agreed  that  if  workmen  not  members  of 
the  unions  parties  hereto  are  alleged  to  be  employed  on 
any  job  whereon  any  member  or  members  of  the  Build- 
ing Trades  Employers'  Association  are  doing  work,  it 
shall  be  brought  immediately  to  the  attention  of  the 
Board  of  Arbitration  hereinafter  provided  for,  and  if 
the  facts  are  found  by  said  board  to  be  as  alleged,  it  shaU 
not  be  deemed  a  violation  of  this  agreement  for  any 
members  of  the  unions  above  mentioned  to  refuse  to 
work  on  the  job  in  question,  unless  such  workmen  are 
justifiably  employed  in  the  case  above  provided  for,  that 
is,  where  a  union,  or  a  number  of  members  of  the  union, 
have  first  violated  this  agreement. 

To  secure  the  careful  and  fair  execution  of  the 
agreement,  it  was  provided  that  there  should  be 
established  a  permanent  board  of  arbitration  to  con- 
sist of  five  men  representing  the  employers'  side  and 
five  representing  labor.  To  this  board  are  to  be 
referred  all  disputes  which  may  arise  relative  to 
alleged  violations  of  the  agreement  or  the  intent  or 
meaning  thereof.  The  decisions  of  the  board  are 
to  be  final.    If  the  board  cannot  agree  on  ajiyi  point 


AMEBICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR         97 

it  is  to  select  an  umpire  whose  decisions  are  to  be 
binding  on  all  parties. 

6.  Organization  of  worrien.  The  first  national 
union  to  admit  women  on  equal  terms  with  men  was 
the  International  Typographical  Union  in  1869  and 
the  next  year,  1870,  Augusta  Lewis  was  a  delegat-e 
to  its  convention.  Although  the  first  women's  strike 
had  occurred  in  1828,  and  although  this  was  followed 
by  spirited  struggles  against  wage  cuts  and  for  a 
ten-hour  day,  there  was  little  organization  among 
women  by  1880.  A  great  impetus  towards  women's 
unions  and  women's  participation  in  men's  unions — 
such  as  we  see  to-day  in  the  powerful  International 
Ladies  Garment  Workers'  Union — was  given  by  the 
Women's  Trade  Union^League  formed  first  in  New 
York  City  and  then  developed  into  a  national  organ- 
ization in  1903  with  headquarters  at  Chicago.  The 
I^ational  Women's  Trade  Union  League  now  has 
thirteen  branches  in  the  great  industrial  centers,  is 
affiliated  with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
and  votes  at  its  conventions.  Each  union  that 
it  succeeds  in  forming  goes  directly  into  the  Federa- 
tion. Non-wage -earning  members  of  the  National 
Women's  Trade  Union  League,  who  help  in  the  work 
of  organizing  women,  are  known  as  allies,  and  the 
national  president  herself  is  one  of  these. 

Growth  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. — 
When  the  Federation  was  organized  in  1886  the 
actual  membership  was  estimated  at  about  150^000. 


^ 


98  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

The  growth  up  to  the  close  of  the  century  was  slow, 
showing  a  total  of  300,000  in  1899.  At  that  point 
the  membership  began  to  swing  upward  rapidly, 
reaching  1,650,000  in  1904;  2,000,000  in  1914; 
and  3,050,000  in  1919.  In  1919  the  Federation 
embraced  884  locaFtrade  and  federal  labor  unions, 
111  national  and  international  unions,  46  state  fed- 
erations, 816  central  city  bodies,  572  local  depart- 
ment councils,  and  33,852  local  unions. 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor  as  an  organi- 
zation.— The  American  Federation  of  Labor  has  its 
headquarters  at  Washington,  D.  C,  in  its  own  build- 
ing, which  cost  nearly  $200,000.  Its  officers  con- 
sist of  a  president,  eight  vice-presidents,  a  secretary 
and  a  treasurer,  all  elected  at  the  annual  convention 
for  the  term  of  one  year.  These  officers  form  the 
executive  council.  The  Federation  has  five  depart- 
ments: building  trades,  metal  trades,  railway 
employees,  mining,  and  union  label.  These  depart- 
ments were  instituted  in  an  effort  to  settle  disputes 
that  constantly  arose  between  the  craft  unions  over 
their  respective  jurisdictions.  The  field  of  the 
American  Federation  extends  to  Canada  and  the 
insular  possessions  of  the  United  States. 

THe  basis -of-^  the  Federation,  as  indicated  above,  is 
the  national  or  international  union,  the  term  '^inter- 
national'' being  used  on  account  of  the  Canadian 
affiliation.  City  central  bodies,  state  federations, 
local  federations,  and  local  unions  not  organized  on 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR         99 

a  national  basis  are  admitted  to  affiliation,  but  the 
fundamental  basis  is  the  national  or  international 
organization. 

The  national  or  international  union  holds  its 
charter  from  the  American  Federation  and  in  turn 
it  charters  local  unions  within  the  trade  or  craft. 
The  charter  held  by  the  national  union  provides  for 
virtual  self-government,  but  the  chartipr  of  the  local 
union  within  the  craft  confers  very  little  power  of 
self-government  upon  the  local  executives.  The 
national  union  is  responsible  for  local  strikes  in  the 
trade  and  for  the  success  or  the  failure  of  the  same. 
The  executive  officers  of  the  national  union  may 
approve  or  disapprove  of  actions  taken  by  local 
unions  and  may  expel  or  disown  a  local  union.  Such 
breaks  between  national  and  local  officers  are  matters 
of  common  occurrence. 

^here  is  considerable  diversity  of  type  among  the 
national  (or  international)  unions.  The  Typograph- 
ical International,  for  example,  is  a  strictly  craft 
union.  The  United  Mine  Workers,  on  the  other 
hand,  includes  every  worker — all  the  coal  workers, 
skilled  and  unskilled,  who  want  to  join  the  union. 
The  latter  type  becomes  more  common  in  the  fields 
of  industry  where  there  is  a  great  concentration  of 
capital  and  ownership. 

The  American  Federation  holds  an  annual  con- 
vention composed  of  representatives  apportioned  on 
the  following  basis: 


100         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

1.  From  national  and  international  unions,  for 
less  tlian  four  thousand  members,  one  delegate ;  eight 
thousand  or  more,  three  delegates;  sixteen  thousand 
or  more,  four  delegates,  and  so  on. 

2.  From  central  bodies,  state  federations,  national 
departments,  federal  labor  unions,  and  local  unions 
having  no  national  or  international  union,  one  dele- 
gate each;  provided,  however,  that  local  and  federal 
unions  in  any  one  city  may  unite  in  sending  one 
delegate. 

The  ciirrent  management  of  affairs  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  president  and  the  executive  council.  It  is  the 
duty  of  the  executive  council:  (1)  to  watch  legis^ 
lative  measures  directly  affecting  the  interests  of 
working  people  and  to  initiate  whenever  necessary 
such  legislative  action  as  the  convention  may  direct ; 
(2)  to  use  every  possible  means  to  organize  new  local 
and  international  unions;  aiid  (3)  to  secure  unity 
of  action  in  trade  disputes  without  interfering~with 
the  right  of  each  trade  to  manage  its  own  affairs. 

The  executive  council,  of  eleven  members,  is  a 
very  powerful  body.  It  cannot  dominate  of  course 
the  policy  of  any  single  trade  union,  but  it  wields  a 
great  influence  on  labor  policy  and  action.'  It  issues 
statements  on  public  and  labor  questions  from  time 
to  time.  All  important  matters  calling  for  con- 
vention action  are  first  referred  to  it.  It  initiates 
most  of  the  measures  approved  by  the  convention. 
It  is  composed  of  the  master  spirits  of  the  Eedera- 


AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR       101 

tion.  It  may  levy  funds  within  limits  for  the  sup- 
port of  strikes  and  its  hearty  co-operation  is  impor- 
tant in  the  conduct  of  a  big  labor  battle  by  any  trado 
union,  international  or  local. 

Organized  labor  outside  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor. — The^  American  Federation  does  not 
embrace  all  the  labor  organizaIions~in''the  IJiiited" 
States.  The  four  _^eat  Brotherhoods  of  railway 
workers  are  independent :  the  locQraotive .  engineers 
(1863),  the  jcailway__condiictors  (1868),  the  locomo- 
tive firemen_and  engine  men  (1873),  and  the  mainte- 
nance of  way  employes.  The  railway  Brotherhoods 
came  into  existence  as  benevolent  associations  formed 
by  the  men  to  protect  themselves  and  their  families 
because  it  wa_s  difficult  for  them  to  secure_acceptance 
by  the  regular  insurance  companies  on  account  of 
the  hazards  of  their  calling.  The  insurance  features 
soon  developed  into  an  immense  business  and  the 
brotherhoods'  officers  have  managed  their  funds  with 
great  skill  and  integrity.  The  engineers  own  a  sky- 
scraper office  building  in  Cleveland  that  cost 
$1,250,000.  The  trainmen  have  paid  out  over 
$42,000,000  in  insurance.  Altogether  the  Brother- 
hoods have  between  four  and  five  hundred  thousand 
members. 

Having  large  funds  to  safeguard,  .the  railway  men 
have  been  extremely  careful  about  using  the  strike 
as^a  weapon  to  enforce  their  demands.  They  have 
relied  rather  upon  arbitration  and  the  heavy  pres- 


102        J^MERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

sure  of  strong  organization  to  obtain  their  demands. 
Between  1907  and  1912  about  sixty  wage  disputes 
were  settled  under  the  Erdman  act  passed  by  Con- 
gress to  facilitate  the  peaceful  adjustment  of  wage 
controversies.  In  addition  to  possessing  huge  funds, 
they  are  strengthened  nationally  by  virtue  of  the 
national  character  of  their  occupation.  They  do  not 
depend  upon  local  trades  and  local  employers;  their 
work  is  interstate  in  character,  and  their  national 
solidarity  is  enhanced  thereby. 


CHAPTEE  X 

THE  AMEKICAN  FEDEEATION"  OF  LABOR 
AND  POLITICS 

The  Henry  George  Campaign  of  1886 — Independ- 
ent political  action  had  been  endorsed  and  tried  many 
times  and  with,  varying  results  by  organized  labor 
when  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  was  formed 
in  1886.  Th;^  Federation  represented,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  return  to  economic  action.  Local  unions,  how- 
ever, retained  here  and  there  their  old  political  en- 
thusiasm, although  they  were  divided  as  to  politi- 
cal tactics.  Some  of  them  bargained  with  the 
Democrats;  others  with  the  Republicans;  and  still 
others  joined  with  the  Socialists  in  an  effort  to  form 
an  independent  party. 

A  striking  example  of  labor  in  local  politics  was 
afforded  by  the  spectacular  campaign  which  Henry 
George  waged  in  ITew  York  for  the  mayoralty  in 
1886.  George  was  not  a  socialist,  but  relied  upon 
the  single  tax  as  a  panacea  for  poverty.  He  was 
not  even  a  convinced  trade  unionist.  Like  George 
Henry  Evans,  the  agrarian  leader  of  the  forties,  he 
put  his  main  emphasis  upon  private  land  owner- 

103 


104        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

ship  as  tlie  source  of  all  evil.  He  rallied  to  his  sup- 
port a  number  of  middle  class  radicals  and  profes- 
sional people  and  was  nominated  as  tlie  labor  candi- 
date for  mayor.  George  was  joined  in  his  campaign 
by  Father  McGlynn,  an  Irish  priest  who,  after  carry- 
ing with  him  most  of  his  wage-earning  parishioners 
and  stirring  the  community  to  the  depths,  was  ex- 
communicated. 

Organized  labor  was  particularly  active  in  this 
campaign  because  the  'New  York  unions  had  just 
been  beaten  in  a  legal  battle  in  the  courts.  For  the 
use  of  the  boycott  they  had  been  convicted  in  the 
courts  and  heavily  fined.  They  were  now  eager  to 
turn  to  politics  for  redress.  Largely  through  their 
efforts,  Henry  George  won  second  place  in  the  race 
for  mayor  with  a  vote  of  68,000  against  90,000 
polled  by  Hewitt,  the  successful  candidate.  As  a 
result  of  the  large  vote,  N"ew  York  labor  was  encour- 
aged by  the  experiment.  It  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  a  long  list  of  labor  legislation  pass  the  next 
session  of  the  state  legislature.  This  list  included 
the  creation  of  ^'a.  board  of  mediation  and  arbitration, 
the  regulation  of  tenement  houses,  provision  for 
labeling  and  marketing  convict-made  goods,  the  per- 
fection of  the  mechanics'  lien,  regulation  of  the 
employm^nt~of"~w6nien  and  children,  regulation  of 
the  hours  of  labor  on  the  street,  surface,  and  elevated 
railroads,  the  amendment  of  the  notorious  penal 
code  by  prohibiting  employers,  singly  or  combined, 


LABOR  AND  POLITICS  105 

from  coercing  employees  not  to  join  a  labor  organ- 
ization." 

This  labor  uprising  was,  however,  short-lived. 
George  soon  wearied  of  the  name  "labor"  attached 
to  the  independent  political  party,  and  the  demands 
of  labor  receded  into  the  background.  The  intel- 
lectuals interested  in  a  "panacea"  grew  lukewarm  as 
labor  pressed  for  more  and  more  special  legislation. 
Indeed,  the  call  for  the  next  convention  contained  so 
few  references  to  labor  demands  that  the  social- 
ists affiliated  with  it  led  an  open  war  against  the 
dominance  of  the  movement  by  intellectuals.  George 
himself  preferred  the  name  of  "Free  Soil"  or  "Free 
Land"  party,  and  this  widened  the  breach.  The 
German  unionists  sided  with  the  socialists,  the  local 
labor  party  was  split  open,  and  after  a  defeat  in  a 
second  campaign,  George  withdrew  from  the  field. 

Attitude  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. — 
Mr.  Gompers  watched  the  political  battle  in JN"fiw 
York  with  deep  interest  but  refused  tojb©- overborne 
by  it.  He  thus  stated  his  position:  "The  labor 
movement,  to  succeed  politically,  mus^  work  foT 
present  and  tangible  results.  While  keeping  in  view 
a  lofty  ideal,  we  must  advance  towards  it  through 
practical  steps,  taken  with  intelligent  regard  for 
pressing  needs.  I  believe  with  the  most  advanced 
thinkers  as  to  ultimate  ends,  including  the  abolition 
of  the  wage-system.  ...  As  many  of  us  under- 
stand it,  Mr.  George's  theory  of  land  taxation  does 


106         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

not  promise  present  reform,  nor  an  ultimate  solu- 
tion." He  was  confirmed  in  liis  strict  union  policy 
by  the  wreck  of  the  N'ew  York  labor  party  organiza- 
tion. In  refusing  to  allow  the  Federation  to  be 
drawn  officially  into  the  work  of  forming  an  inde- 
pendent political  party  he  followed  a  policy  which 
he  believed  to  be  justified  by  experience. 

While  the  Federation  abstained  officially  from 
politics,  many  of  its  members  continued  to  run  for 
office  and  local  unions  were  more  or  less  active  in 
politics.  In  1894  the  magazine  of  the  rederation, 
The  Federationistj  printed  a  list  of  300  names  of 
trade  unionists  who  were  candidates  for  office.  Of 
this  number  only  about  half  a  dozen  were  actually 
elected.  Such  experiments  served  also  to  confirm 
Mr.  Gompers  as  to  the  soundness  of  his  position  with 
regard  to  independent  political  action. 

Attempts  to  drive  the  American  Federation  into 
politics. — It  was  not  until  the  early  nineties  that  a 
national  party  projected  along  national  lines  and 
appealing  particularly  to  labor  entered  the  political 
lists — namely,  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  which  pre- 
sented a  candidate  for  the  presidency  of  the  United 
States  in  1892.  There  had  of  course  long  been  a 
socialist  movement  but  it  had  been  local  in  activities 
and  organization.  This  Socialist  Labor  party  sought 
affiliation  with  the  American -Federation  of  Labor, 
but  was  rejected  on  the  ground  that  it  was.  not  a 
trade   union   organization,    as   the   constitution   re- 


LABOR  AND  POLITICS  107 

quired.  In  1894  the  socialists  attempted  to  secure 
an  endorsement  oi  scciairsifi  at  the  hands  of  the 
Americau-Eedexation,  and  were  again  defeated.  Mr. 
Gompers  led  the  fight  against  them,  pointing  out  the 
small  labor  vote  and  the  recent  defeat  of  the  labor 
and  socialist  candidates  as  proof  that  independent 
political  action  was  futile.  With  persistent  regu- 
larity the  socialist  members  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor  sought  to  secure  from  it  a  resolution 
approving  socialist  doctrines  and  independent  po- 
litical action  on  the  part  of  labor.  Through  thirty 
yearsjaLpreftidenc^  Mr.  Gompers  sioAd  his_ ground, 
winning  at  each  successive  convention  the  approval 
of  the  rank  and  file  in  his  organization. 

Legislative  demands  of  the  American  Federation 
involving  political  action. — The  refusal  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  to  "endorse  socialism 
and  independent  political  action  did  not  mean  that 
thF"Federattoir  favored  no^^ieasures  whi^h  called  for 
a^ion^Dy  state  TegrslaturSS~aTid  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States.  From  time  to  time  the  Federation 
at  its  annual  convention  endorsed  such  proposals  as 
the  initiative,  referendum,  and  recall,  the  recall  of 
judges,  popular  elecSon'of TTniled  States  senators, 
workmen's  comp^satipn^j-estriction  of  immigration, 
uniform  laws  protecting  life  anihealth,  in  imnes  and 
factories,  jthe  establishment  of  stateL.labor  bureaus, 
the  establishment  of  a  national  Department  of  Labor, 
restriction  of  convict  labor,  limitation  of  the  use  of 


108        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

injunction  in  strikes,  the  exemption  of  trade  unions 
from  the  provisions  of  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law 
of  1890  which  penalized  combinations  in  restraint 
of  trade,  woman  suffrage  by  federal  amendment 
(1890),  abolition  of  child  labor,  equal  pay  for  equal 
work  ( 1 894 ),J;he  establishment  of  a  national  Depart- 
ment of  Education,  civic  and  political  freedom  for 
public  employees,  exclusion  of  Oriental  labor,  em- 
ployers^ liability  and  safety  laws,  voluntary  social 
insurance,  old  age  pensions.  (1909),  government 
ownership  of  the  telegraphs,  government  ownership 
or  regulation  of  other  utilities,  opposition  to  anti- 
strike  legislation.  It  relied  on  persuasion  and  sought 
to  avoid  political  controversies. 

The  first  battle  over  the  injunction. — However, 
labor  again  came  into  conflict  with  the  courts.  The 
issue  this  time  was  the  injunction.  An  injunction 
is  a  bill  or  writ  issued  by  a  judge  of  a  court  order- 
ing some  person,  corporation,  or  combinations  of 
persons  to  perform  a  certain  act  or  series  of  acts 
or  to  refrain  from  doing  a  certain  thing  or  certain 
things.  The  injunction  is  an  ancient  legal  device 
which  came  into  prominence  in  the  railway  strike  of 
1877  and  again  in  connection  with  the  great  Pullman 
strike  in  Chicago  in  1894.  On  the  latter  occasion 
the  local  federal  district  judge  issued  a  general  or 
blanket  injunction  to  Eugene  V.  Debs  and  all  other 
persons  involved  in  the  ]a.bor  dispute,  ordering  them 
to  refrain  from  interfering  with  the  transmission  of 


LABOR  AND  POLITICS  109 

mails  or  with  interstate  commerce  in  any  form.  The 
leader,  Mr.  Debs,  was  arrested,  fined  and  impris- 
oned for  refusing  to  obey  the  judicial  order.  He  was 
punished  for  contempt  of  court,  an  action  which  did 
not  call  for  trial  by  jury  but  merely  the  hearing  by 
a  judge. 

Labor  leaders  were  deeply  moved  by  what  they 
called  "a  new  form  of  judicial  tyranny"  by  which 
strikes  might  be  broken  through  the  imprisonment  of 
leaders  without  trial  by  jury.  Accordingly  the 
power  of  the  courts  to  issue  injunctions  was  brought 
into  politics  by  organized  labor.  Although  the 
Kepublicans  in  their  1908  platform  promised  legis- 
lation restricting  the  use  of  the  injunction,  it  was 
the  Democrats  who  inclined  a  more  friendly  ear  to 
labor's  demand  for  drastic  limitations  on  the  issuance 
of  the  writ  by  the  courts.  In  1896  the  Democratic 
platform  denounced  "government  by  injunction  as 
a  new  and  highly  dangerous  form  of  oppression  by 
which  federal  judges,  in  contempt  of  the  laws  of 
States  and  the  rights  of  citizens,  become  at  once 
legislators,  judges,  and  executioners."  _  As  a  remedy 
theLl]^niDiiLiai£^romised^to_restrain  by  law  the  hands 
oljederal  judges  and  to  provide^ jury  trial  in  con- 
tempt cases. 

The  campaign  of  1896. — The  more  friendly  atti- 
tude of  the  Democratic  party  in  1896  drew  a  large 
support  from  labor  ranks.  At  that  time  a  radical 
farmers'   organization,   the  Populist  party,   was  in 


110         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

full  swing  with  a  number  of  ideas  that  were  accept- 
able to  organized  labor.  The  nomination  of  Mr. 
Bryan  by  the  Democrats  and  his  endorsement  by  the 
majority  of  the  Populists  made  a  strong  appeal  to  the 
labor  vote.  In  that  campaign  the  Democrats  vigor- 
ously denounced  "capitalism  and  the  money  power," 
and  arrayed  the  masses  against  the  classes.  They  pro- 
posed income  taxes  on  the  rich,  free  silver  or  an 
abundance  of  money  in  circulation,  limitation  of  in- 
junctions, and  other  measures  which  proved  attrac- 
tive to  trade  unionists  in  their  struggle  against  pow- 
erful employers  of  labor,  and  especially  against  the 
great  trusts  with  which  they  had  found  themselves 
unable  to  cope  on  equal  terms.  While  Mr.  Gompers 
refused  to  permit  the  Federation  to  enter  politics  on 
an  independent  basis,  he  privately  worked  for  the 
election  of  Mr.  Bryan.  At  the  close  of  the  campaign 
his  conduct  and  policy  were  discussed  at  a  secret  ses- 
sion of  the  Federation  officials  and  approved  by  the 
members  present.  In  1908  Mr.  Gompers  came  out 
openly  for  Mr.  Bryan,  and  boasted  that  eighty  per 
cent  of  the  voting  members  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion had  cast  their  ballots  for  the  Democratic  candi- 
date. Two  years  later  the  Federation  resolved  to 
"stand  faithfully  by  our  friends,  oppose  and  defeat 
our  enemies,  whether  they  be  candidates  for  presi- 
dent, for  Congress,  or  for  otlier  offices,  whether  ex- 
ecutive, legislative  or  judicial." 

This  policy  bore  fruit  in  1914  in  the  enactment  of 


LABOR  AND  POLITICS  111 

the  Clayton  anti-trust  law  which  severely  limited  the 
use'of"  injunctions  in  laBor  dispiifes  and  provided 
trial  by  jury  m  "case  of^ontempt  committed  outside 
of  the  court.  The  measure  was  hailed  by  Mr.  Gom- 
pers  as  a  mighty  triumph  and  ^^the  Magna  Charta 
of  labor."  His  assurance  on  the  point  was  some- 
what shaken, Tiowever,  in  iT)19>7wben  Judge^  Ander- 
son of  the  federal  district  court  of  Indiana  issued 
an  injunction  against  the  miners  out  on  strike.  This 
action  was  based  on  the  Lever  law  passed  during 
the  Great  War  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  inter- 
ference with  industries,  and  curtailment  of  produc- 
tion. The  American  Federation  had  been  assured  by 
responsible  officers  in  the  federal  government  that  the 
law  would  not  apply  to  labor  unions.  What  appeared 
to  be  settled,  therefore,  v/as  unsettled. 

The  collision  with  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law. — 
In  1890  Congress  enacted  the  famous  Sherman  anti- 
trust law,  ostensibly  directed  against  great  trusts  and 
combinations  in^  business,  forbidding  all  combina- 
tio~ns~iri'  restraint  of  interstate  ^hd  foreign~^ade. 
It  was  thought  by  labor  leaders  that  Congress  did 
not  intend  to  apply  this  law  to  labor  unions,  but 
in  the  famous  Danbury  hatters'  case  started  in  the 
federal  court  at  Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  1903,  they 
learned  that  they  were  in  error.  In  this  case  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  on  appeal  found 
for  the  first  time  ^^that  boycotts  could  be  reached 
under  the  provisions  of  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law, 


112         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

and  that  labor  unions,  found  guilty  of  combining  to 
rimlr  tlie~inarket  of  goo3s  transported  from  one  state 
to  another,  were  liable  for  the  payment  of  threefold 
damages."  ^  As  a  result  of  this  action  on  the  part  of 
the  court,  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  com- 
bined its  war  on  the  injunptipn_wilh  a  battle  against 
the  Sherman  anti-trust  law.  It  succeeded,  in  1914, 
inT'securing  iForrf  Congress  (among  the  terms  of  the 
Clayton  act  mentioned  above)  the  exemption  of 
unions  from  the  operations  of  the  Sherman  law. 
*  See  Laidier,  Boycotts  and  the  Labor  Struggle. 


CHAPTEK  XI 

REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY  AND 
TACTICS 

1.       MEANING  OF  THE  TERM  "eEVOLUTIONABy" 

The  term  ^^revolutionary''  as  used  in  this  chapter 
is  not  confined  to  radical  movements  that  seek 
to  accomplish  their  purposes  by  bloodshed.  The 
word  revolution  is  often  misunderstood.  It  does 
not  always,  or  even  mainly,  imply  terror  and  execu- 
tions such  as  accompanied  the  Erench  Revolution, 
nor  the  destruction  of  life  and  property  by  violence. 
There  can  be  peaceful  revolutions.  The  famous  Eng- 
lish political  philosopher,  Edmund  Burke,  once  re- 
marked that  greater  changes  may  sometimes  be  in^ 
troduced  into  society  insensibly  through  a  period  of 
years  than  can  be  wrought  by  sudden  and  violent 
action  in  a  short  time. 

Tbe   word   revolution   means   a   fundara£ntal  -or 

radical  change  in  the  basis  ofJiungs.     The  winning 

of  American  independence  was  accomplished  by  a 

violent  "revolution"  which  substituted  the  authoritv 

of  the  American  people  for  that  of  the  British  King 

and    Parliament.     The    gradual    change    from    the 

113 


114        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

agricultural  and  feudal  society  of  the  eighteenth 
century  to  the  manufacturing  society  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  brought  about  by  steam  and  machin- 
ery is  called  the  ^^Industrial  Revolution/'  Again 
when  the  old  Federalist  party  was  overthrown  in 
1800  by  the  triumph  of  Jeffersonian  Democracy, 
the  overturn  was  hailed  as  the  ^'Great  Revolution." 

So  there  are  revolutions  that  mean  violence  and 
bloodshed;  there  are  revolutions  that  are  brought 
about  insensibly  and  gradually  as  coral  reefs  are 
built  up  by  the  action  of  tiny  insects ;  and  there  are, 
revolutions  brought  about  by  the  political  over- 
throw of  a  ruling  class,  such  as  a  nobility  or  clergy. 
Changes  deserve  the  name  of  revolution,  however, 
only  when  they  are  radical,  drastic,  and  far-reaching. 
The  overthrow  of  a  monarchy  and  the  substitution 
of  a  republic  is  a  revolution;  the  transformation  of 
America  from  a  purely  agricultural  country  into  a 
great  manufacturing  nation  and  a  world  power  is  a 
revolution;  if  the  socialists  should  carry  the  elec- 
tion, find  themselves  in  possession  of  the  power  of 
government,  and  introduce  public  ownership  of 
natural  resources  and  industries,  that  would  be  a 
revolution,  even  though  no  violence  whatever  might 
accompany  the  process. 

RevolutionaryjAbfii:.^ovements  as  treated  in  this 
chapter  are  those  which  reject  lh"e"presenr industrial 
system  and  propose  dras'fic'X'h'anges  in  the  way  in 
which  food,  clothing,  and~shelter  are  produced  and 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        115 

tlie  total  product  distributed  among  the  producers. 
In  the  Middle  Ages  and  on  down  to  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  eighteenth  century  these  things  were  pro- 
duced b2_handworkers  for  use  rather  than  for  profit 
and  the  whole  process  of  production  was  controlled 
by  guilds  and  legislation.  Then  came  the  introduc- 
tion of  steam  and  machinery,  the  rise  of  the  capital- 
ist class,  the  industrial  workers,  world  markets,  in- 
dustrial conflicts  and  many  other  manifestations  of 
a  new  and  revolutionary  industrial  order.  Alex- 
ander Hamilton,  in  advocating  the  introduction  of 
manufactures  on  a  large  scale  into  the  United  States, 
was  in  fact  proposing  a  revolution  in  American  af- 
fairs; while  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  wanted  to  keep 
workshops  in  Europe  and  America  almost  wholly 
agricultural,  was  in  fact  conservative.  There  have 
been  revolutionary  leaders  in  the  labor  world  during 
the  past  hundred  years  who  have  wanted  to  go  back 
to  the  old  way  of  producing  food,  clothing  and 
shelter,  the  way  that  prevailed  in  the  age  of  handi- 
crafts and  the  stagecoach.  There  have  been  other 
revolutionary  leaders  who  have  proposed  to  "move 
forward"  as  they  call  it  into  a  new  epoch  in  which 
the  machinery  of  production  shall  belong  not  to 
private  persons  but  to  the  workers  collectively.  Then 
there  have  been  many  irresponsible  agitators  filled 
with  mere  hatred  of  the  existing  order  who  have 
advocated  destruction  without  offering  any  very  defi- 
nite program   in  return.     A   "revolutionist"   may 


116         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

therefore  be  a  very  practical  person;  he  may  be  a 
mere  theorist;  he  may  be  prophesying  something 
that  is  bound  to  come;  or  he  may  be  a  criminal. 
Whatever  his  type,  he  is  always  with  us. 

2.  THE  KOBLE  OEDEB  OF  KN^IGnTS  OF  LABOB 

The  firsl_revolutionary  labor  organization  of  na- 
tional proportions  and  influence  in  the  United  States 
was  the  Noble  Order  of  the  Knights  of  Labor 
founded  at  Phila(IeTphia"in~186^  by  Uriah  Smith 
Stevens  and  other  local  garment  workers.  There 
had  been  revolutionary  thinkers  and  agitators  in  the 
labor  movement  before  this  time — communists,  co- 
operators,  agrarians,  and  anarchists — ^but  not  until 
this  date  did  a  great  organized  movement  appear. 

Secret  character  of  the  organization. — The 
Knights jwere  at  first  a  local  secret^  order.  Their 
T^eird  cabalistic  signs  chalked  on  the  sidewalks  and 
fences  were  as  terrifying  to  the  uninitiated  as  black 
hand  characters  of  recent  years.  The  ritual  of  the 
Knights  declared  that  ^^open  and  public  association 
having  failed  after  a  struggle  of  centuries  to  protect 
or  advance  the  interests  of  labor,  we  have  lawfully 
constituted  this  assembly  and  in  using  this  power  of 
organized  effort  and  cooperation  we  but  imitate  the 
example  of  capital,  for  in  all  the  multifarious 
branches  of  trade,  capital  has  its  combinations  and 
whether  intended  or  not  it  crushes  the  manly  hopes 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        117 

of  labor  and  tramples  poc:*  humanity  into  the  dust." 
By  maintaining  secrecy  the  Knights  hoped  to  keep 
their  organization  ^'hedged  about  with  the  impene- 
trable veil  of  ritual,  sign,  grip,  and  password,  so 
that  no  spy  of  the  boss  can  find  his  way  into  the 
lodge  room  to  betray  his  fellows."  Not  until  the 
hostility  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the  press,  and  the 
pulpit  became  bitter  in  the  extreme^did  the  Knights 
give  up  the  secret  character  of  their  organization  in 
1881. 

The  labor  philosophy  of  the  Knights  of  Labor. — 
Like  the  Socialists,  the  Knights  of  Labor_advocated 
puK[ic"owhership  of  all  public  utilities  such  as  rail- 
ways," Waterworks,  gas  plants.  They  also  believed 
in  adding,  jto  public  aw^ner ship  of  utilities,, coopera- 
tive institutions  for  the  production  and  distribution 
of  goods.  Thus  private  organizations  of  working 
people  were  to  be  coupled  with  government  owner- 
ship in  the  new  society  which  they  hoped  to  create. 

The  form  of  organization  of  the  Knights  was  sim- 
ple. They_believed  that  all  laborers — skilled  and 
unskilled,  men,  women,  whites,  aiid  blacks, — should 
band  together  in  one  mighty  organization  without 
distinctions  of  trade  and  craft.  They  believed  that 
this  one  great  union  should  work  for  the  coopera- 
tive commonwealth.  ^An  injuiy  to  one  is  the  con- 
cern of  all"  was  their  constant~decIarati'on  of"faith. 


■    Ti  was  in  their  appeal  to  the  lowest  paid  and  un- 


118        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

skilledjworkers  that  the  Knights  developed  a  menac- 
ing, revolutionary  character.  They  naturally  at- 
tracted radicals  of  all  sorts,  including  non-wage- 
earnmg  intellectuals  "^ho  are  always  hovering  on 
the  edge  of  the  labor  world.  Thus  they  drew  to 
themselves  advocates  of  all  kinds  of  panaceas :  green- 
bacMsm,  cooperation,  "socialism,  land  reTorm,  and 
other  "isms."  Not  being  bound  down  like  the  trade 
union  to  the  routine  of  organization,  dues  collection, 
wage  negotiations,  and  the  like,  the  Knights  gave 
free  rein  to  their  revolutionary  speculations.  They 
denied  all  identity  of  interest  between  the  employer 
and  employee,  and  proposed  no  collective  bargaining 
as  a  means  to  industrial  peace.  "To  point  out  a 
way  to  utterly  destroy  the  [wage]  system  would  be 
a  pleasure  to  me,"  exclaimed  Grand  Master  Work- 
man Powderly,  long  a  leader  of  the  Knights. 

Nevertheless,  the  bona  fide  working-class  element 
in  the  Knights,  forced  by  necessity  to  earn  a 
livelihood  in  the  prevailing  system  of  production, 
constantly  insisted  on  the  importance  of  "getting 
down  to  earth,"  carrying  on  strikes  for  better  wages, 
and  making  wage  bargains  with  employers.  .This 
"practical"  element  got  the  upper  hand  in  the  decade 
of  the  eighties;  but  the  theoreticians  and  Utopians 
were  always  numerous  and  strong.  Between  the  two 
the  Noble  Order  was  torn  into  shreds.  The  officers, 
caught  between  the  two  great  factions,  tried  to  ap- 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        119 

pease  both  by  political  and  humanitarian  activities 
on  the  one  hand  and  economic  warfare  along  wage 
and  trade  union  lines  on  the  other  hand. 

The  Knights  in  the  national  field. — The  growth  of 
the  Knights  was  slow  at  first.  By  1873  they -ha4 
only~^tx  aggcmbliesy  all4n  -Phifedelphia.  Then  the 
idea  was  taken  up  by  workers  in  other  cities  and 
steadily  spread  throughout  the  industrial  regions. 
In  1875  the  Knights  called  a  national  convention  at 
Tyrone,  Pennsylvania,  extending  an  invitation  to 
other  labor  organizations  to  join  with  them.  The 
Social  Democratic  Party  of  North  America,  which 
had  just  got  under  way,  accepted  the  invitation. 
Thus  the  socialists  with  their  determined  hostility 
to  the  capitalist  system  of  production  actively  par- 
ticipated for  the  first  time  as  a  group  in  the  Ameri- 
can labor  movement. 

Launched  on  a  national  scale,  the  Knights  grew 
by  leaps  and  bounds  in  membership  and  strength. 
They  began  an  aggressive  campaign  for  a  higher 
standard  of  living,  waging  strikes  all  along  the  line. 
One  of  their  most  severe  and  successful  contests  was 
with  the  Gould  railway  system  m  1885.  In  this 
battle  they  introduced  sabotage,  though  that  name 
had  not  yet  been  chosen  for  this  species  of  industrial 
warfare;  they  disabled  railway  locomotives  by  re- 
moving vital  pai*ts.  Having  crippled  the  railway 
system  they  were  able  to  win  recognition  and  con- 


120        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

cessions  from  the  most  powerful  capitalist  of  the  day, 
Jay  Gould,  and  this  stroke  gave  them  a  world-wide 
reputation  for  daring  and  industrial  power.  Their 
triumph  was  received  with  alarm  and  amazement  hy 
the  press,  and  the  public  at  large.  The  rank  and  file 
declared  that  the  Gould  strike  represented  merely  a 
phase  in  the  "deadly  conflict"  between  capital  and 
labor.  So  radical  did  they  become  that  they  swept 
aside  the  officials  who  sought  to  restrain  their  revo- 
lutionary ardor.  Even  the  loss  of  a  number  of 
strikes  about  the  same  time  did  not  convince  them 
that  there  were  limits  to  the  possibilities  of  their 
order. 

The  conflict  of  the  Knights  with  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor. — Just  at  this  period  the  Amer- 
ican Federation^  of  jLabor,  entered  the  field,  based 
upon  ideas  directly  opposite  to  thoseheld  by  the 
KnigEts^^^namely^lEecraft  or  trade  union  (excluding 
the  unorganized  and  unskilled),  wage  bargaining, 
and  abstention  from  political  action  and  revolution- 
ary theories.  In  1886  the  two  organizations  had  a 
membership  of  nearly  a  million,  of  whom  about 
700,000  were  Knights.  The  latter,  much  stronger 
from  the  standpoint  of  numbers,  were  primarily  in- 
terested in  the  unskilled.  If  necessary,  they  were 
prepared  to  level  the  skilled  down  in  their  efforts  to 
raise  the  casual  laborer.  The  Knights,  however, 
tried  to  win  and  hold  the  sympathy  and  support  of 


REYOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        121 

the  skilled  craft  unionists,  because  they  knew  that 
without  the  aid  of  the  latter  they  could  not  go  far. 
Historically,  as  we  have  seen,  the  skilled  craftsman 
resented  the  invasion  of  industry  by  the  unskilled 
adult  and  the  untrained  apprentice,  so  that  it  was  no 
mean  task  that  the  Knights  set  before  themselves. 

In  this  contest  the  skilled  workers  steadily  re- 
fuseTamalgamatlon^wit^Ith^^  the  weaker 

elemenrnTn  industry,  insisting  that  such  a  union 
would  retard  their  own  development.  The  fate  of 
the  skilled  craftsmen  was  too  uncertain  at  this 
period  for  them  to  risk  an  expansion  over  the  whole 
industrial  field.  They  held  from  the  beginning  that 
the  tendency  of  the  skilled  trades  was  '^to  sink  to  the 
level  of  pauper  labor."  SeK-preservation  had  been 
their  instinct  and  in  1886  they  firmly  took  this  posi- 
tion: '^To  protect  the  skilled  labor  of  America  from 
being  reduced  to  beggary  and  to  sustain  the  standard 
of  American  workmanship  and  skill,  the  trades 
unions  of  America  have  been  established."  To 
dilute  the  craft  union  with  a  floating  mass  of  un- 
skilled labor  seemed  to  them  to  be  the  beginning  of 
ruin  for  all  labor. 

In  vain  did  the  Knights  seek  to  win  craft  support. 
In  TSS'B"  they  appealed  to  the  iron  and  steel  workers 
in  the  following  language :  '^In  the  use  of  the  wonder- 
ful inventions  .  .  .  your  organization  plays  a  most 
important  part  Naturally  it  embraces  within  its 
ranks  a  very  large  proportion  of  laborers  of  a  high 


122         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

grade  of  skill  and  intelligence.  With  this  skill  of 
hand,  guided  by  intelligent  thought,  comes  the  right 
to  demand  that  excess  of  compensation  paid  to  skilled 
above  the  unskilled  labor.  But  the  unskilled  labor 
must  receive  attention,  or  in  the  hour  of  difficulty 
the  employer  will  not  hesitate  to  use  it  to  depress  the 
compensation  you  receive.  That  skilled  or  un- 
skilled labor  may  no  longer  be  found  unorganized, 
we  ask  of  you  to  annex  your  grand  and  powerful 
corps  to  the  main  army  that  we  may  fight  the  battle 
under  one  flag." 

The  appeal  was  without  effect.  Efforts  were  then 
made  at  cooperation  in  the  form  of  "the  interchange 
of  working  cards,  the  adoption  of  some  plan  by 
which  all  labor  organizations  could  be  protected  from 
unfair  men,  men  expelled,  suspended,  under  fine  if 
guilty  of  taking  places  of  union  men  or  Knights  of 
Labor  while  on  strike  or  while  locked  out  from  work, 
the  adoption  of  a  uniform  standard  of  hours  and 
wages  ...  a  system  of  joint  conferences  and  of 
common  action  against^  employers  provided  that  in 
the  settlement  of  any  difficulties  between  employers 
and  employees  the  organizations  represented  in  the 
establishment  shall  be  parties  to  the  settlement." 
Such  cooperation  was  difficult,  for  the  non-union 
goods  condemned  by  the  regular  unionists  were  often 
made  by  Knights  of  Labor.  Thus  the  two  organi- 
zations really  "scabbed"  on  each  other,  and  friction 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        123 

was  constant.  In_pctober,  1886,  the  Knights  de- 
clared open  war  on  the  American  Federation  of 
I(abor  which  in  tnrn  quickly  retaliated. 

Decline  of  the  Knights  of  Labor. — At  war  with 
powerful  craft  unions,  left  to  themselves  in  the  in- 
dustrial field,  the  Knights  rapidly  disintegrated. 
Their  aggressive  strikes  generally  failed^  Ar- 
bitration was  refused  b}^  employers  who  used  the 
^'blacklist,"  the  "ironclad"  (an  oath  never  to  belong 
to  any  labor  organization),  and  Pinkerton  detectives 
to  defeat  them.  The  Pinkerton  agency  was  really 
the  most  effective  repressive  force.  The  agency  ad- 
vertised among  employers  that  "corporations  and  in- 
dividuals desirous  of  ascertaining  the  feeling  of  their 
employees  and  whether  they  are  likely  to  engage  in 
strikes  or  are  joining  any  secret  labor  organization 
with  a  view  of  compelling  teirms  from  corporations 
or  employers,  can  obtain,  on  application  to  the  super- 
intendent of  either  of  the  offices,  a  detective  suitable 
to  associato  with  their  employees  and  obtain  this  in- 
formation." Thus  the  spy  system  which  had 
brought  into  being  the  secret  Order  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor  continued  and  even  outlived  the  society 
founded  to  resist  it. 

In  spite  of  their  difficulties,  however,  the  Knights 
had" done  much  successful  organization  work  in  their 
tim^  irany  weak  unions  such  as  the  barbers,  horse 
railway  men,   miners,   trunk  makers,   and  hai-ness- 


124        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

makers  had  been  reorganized  by  the  Knights  and 
put  on  their  feet.  The  United  Brewery  Workers, 
established  in  1884,  was  among  the  strongest  units 
in  the  Order.  In  1893  the  United  Hebrew  Trades 
of  New  York  City  joined.  So  effective  had  been 
the  work  of  the  Knights  that  many  of  their  unions, 
including  some  industrial  unions  and  some  unions  of 
semi-skilled  workers,  were  taken  into  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor.  Moreover,  the  Federation  was 
itself  forced  to  adapt  industrial  unionism  to  what  it 
has  called  ^^federal  unions";  that  is,  unions  of  city 
workers  representing  miscellaneous  trades  no  one 
of  ^which  has  its  own  national  craft  union. 

The  Knights~alSBrexercised  influence  upon  legisla- 
tion. They  were  successful  lobbyists  and  were 
mainly  responsible  for  the  fii'st  restrictive  immigra- 
tion law — the  Anti-Contract  labor  law  of  February 
2,  1885 — and  for  a  considerable  body  of  state  labor 
legislation.  Though  the  Knights  were  not  in  favor 
of  strict  apprenticeship  laws  such  as  were  advocated 
by  the  skilled  trade  unionists,  they  were  against  the 
use  of  strike  breakers  introduced  into  the  country 
by  contract  and  in  favor  of  other  measures  beneficial 
to  the  whole  group  of  American  laborers. 

Cooperation  which  had  been  among  the  first  ideas 
of  the  Knights  was  never  neglected.  Many  Knights, 
especially  among  the  men  whose  skill  was  menaced 
by   the  introduction   of   machinery,   bent   all  their 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        125 

efforts  toward  productive  cooperation.^  This  wing 
of  the  Knights  had  not  been  ^'class  conscious,"  for 
it  was  composed  of  men  who  aspired  to  be  small 
employers  or  were  actually  employers.  They  had 
gone  into  the  organization  in  the  hope  that  the  whole 
weight  of  the  Knights  would  be  turned  to  organizing 
cooperative  societies.  Whenever  strikes  failed  or 
industrial  depression  set  in,  there  would  come  a 
wave  of  enthusiasm  for  forming  small  productive 
shops  owned  and  operated  by  groups  of  workmen 
themselves.  Sometimes,  as  the  Illinois  Commis- 
sioner of  Labor  said,  "wage  earners  are  forced  into 
cooperation    by    reason    of    discrimination    against 

*  The  following  list  of  cooperative  societies  founded  in  the 
period  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  is  representative  if  not  com- 
plete : 

Mining 22  Carpentering   2 

Coopers 15  Laundries    2 

Shoes    14  Carpets 

Clothing 8  Bakers   

Foundries 8  Leather 

Soap  6  Leather  goods 

Furniture  workers 5  Plumbing 

Cigar    5  Harness   

Glass 5  Watch  cases 

Knitting 3  Pipes 

Nail    mills 3  Brass  works 

Tobacco    3  Pottery 

Planing  mills 3  Wagon   

Tailoring   2  Refining 

Hats 2  Caskets  ., 

Printing 2  Brooms 

Agricultural  implements.  2  Pottery 

Painters 2  Ice 

Matches    2  Packing 

Baking  powder 2                                                   

Total 136 


126        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

them  by  employers.  Especially  is  this  true  of  pro- 
ductive enterprises,  many  of  which  are  the  direct 
result  of  unsuccessful  strikes  and  blacklisting  which 
has  followed  them." 

Most  of  these  cooperative  enterprises  failed  for 
one  reason  or  another,  the  successful  experiments  ap- 
parently being  joint  stock  companies  rather  than  the 
cooperative  brotherhoods  organized  along  idealistic 
lines.  In  spite  of  heroic  efforts  on  the  part  of 
Knights  to  educate  their  members  in  the  principles 
of  cooperation,  enthusiasm  waned  among  organized 
workmen.  At  all  events  it  no  longer  appeared  as 
a  panacea.  Thus  defeated  in  the  attempts  to  con- 
quer the  capitalist  system  by  cooperation,  at  war 
with  powerful  craft  unions  organized  under  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  the  Knights  disap- 
peared in  the  nineties.  So  the  first  ^^grand  national 
union  of  industrial  workers,", all  inclusive  and  revo- 
lutionary, passed  into  the  limbo  of  dead  experiments. 
The  American  Federation  of  Labor  and  skilled  work- 
ers held  the  field. 

3.    THE  SOCIALIST  MOVEMENT 

Socialism  is  a  vague  term  which  has  a  different 
meaning  from  age  to  age  and  from  group  to  group. 
Its  essential  implication,  however,  is  clear:  it  pro- 
poses to  substitute  some  form  of  collective  owner- 
ship of  the  means  of  production  and  distribution  for 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        127 

the  present  system  of  private  ownership.  Some 
socialists  believe  that^  the  instrument  through  which 
collective  ownership  is  to  be  effected  and  carried  on 
is  the  state  or  the  government  as  it  now  exists. 
These  are  state  socialists.  Others  believe  that  each 
great  group  of  workers  should  own  and  manage  the 
resources  and  machinery  with  which  they  work; 
that  is,  the  miners  should  own  the  mines,  the  railway 
men  the  railways,  and  so  on.  Such  is,  in  short,  the 
faith  of  the  ''guild  socialists."  Still  others  hold  the 
present  poli'^ical  state  or -government  will  come  to 
an  end  and  a  new  collective  organ  be  substituted  for 
it,  like  a  "soviet,"  or  council  of  delegates  from 
groups  01  workers  and  farmers.  It  will  be  seen 
that  the,  essence  of  all  these  plans  is  the  abolition 
of  private  property  in  the  fundamental  means  of 
production  and  the  substitution  of  collective  owner- 
ship, management,  and  distribution.  Whether  the 
instnunent  is  the  government,  the  guild  or  the  soviet, 
it  is  a  collective  body  representing  the  workers  col- 
lectively, or  a  federation  of  groups  or  crafts. 

If  socialists  are  divided  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
term,  so  also  are  they  divided  aa^to  the  methods  by 
which  the  socialist  cormnonwealth  is  to  be  brought 
about.  Some  hold  that  it  is  to  be  accomplished  by 
education  and  agitation;  that  a  suiScient  majority  of 
the  people  are  to  1&e~converted  to  the  socialist  view; 
and  that  legislative  and  administrative  action  is  to 
bring  the  instruments  of  production  and  distribution 


128         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

under  collective  ownership  and  operation.  Those 
who  advocate  such  tactics  point  to  the  way  in  which 
municipalities  take  over  and  operate  their  electric 
light  plants,  the  state  constructs  grain  elevators,  or 
the  federal  government  enters  into  the  parcels  post 
business.  Carry  this  line  of  governmental  activity, 
such  socialists  say,  to  its  logical  conclusion,  and  you 
have  a  socialist  state. 

Other  adherents  to  socialist  doctrines  maintain 
that  the  transition  to  the  collective  or  cooperative 
society  will  come  only  through  the  action  of  power- 
ful industrial  or  trades  unions  which  will  paralyze 
the  existing  system  by  strikes  or  violence  and  then 
take  possession  of  the  instruments  of  production  and 
distribution.  Nearly  all  socialists,  even  state  or 
political  socialists,  believe  that  the  trade  or  industrial 
union  will  be  an  essential  part  of  the  new  order  of 
society  whatever  it  may  be.  In  short,  socialism  is 
to  be  adopted  in  the  interest  primarily  of  _the,wort 
ing  classes  and  the  economic  system  established  is  to 
be  managed  by  them. 

The  Utopian  Socialists. — The  socialistic  theoiy  of 
society  is  almost  as  old  as  civilization.  It  is  set 
forth  in  '^^e^  Repuhlia,  written  by  the  great  Greek 
philosopher,  Plato,  in  the  fourth  century  before 
Christ;  it  is  sketched  in  the  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas 
More,  written  in  -1^16^  and  in  many  other  famous 
books  that  have  appeared  since  that  time. 

The  first  of  the  leading  socialists  in  the  modern 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        129 

industrial  age  was  Robert  Owen,  a  wealthy  English 
manufacturer  who,  oppressed  by  the  misery  and 
poverty  which  he  saw  about  him,  sought  for  a  rem- 
edy. This  remedy  he  found  in  the  formation  of 
cooperative  comniunities  having  land  and  tools 
sufficient  in  the  main  for  their  support  and  produc- 
ing by  common  labor  all  the  food  and  clothing  neces- 
sary for  the  members.  He  proposed  to  bring  about 
his  system  gradually  and  by  converting  rich  and 
educated  men  to  his  doctrines.  Owen  came  to  this 
country  in.  1825  ^nd  founded  one  of  his  colonies  at 
'New  Harmony,  Indiana,  but  it  soon  failed  through 
internal  dissensions.  Then  Owen's  son,  Robert  Dale 
Owen,  began  a  propaganda  in  America  for  a  state 
socialist  scheme  of  education,  and  attracted  to  him- 
self a  number  of  leaders  in  the  labor  world  who  were 
working  for  a  system  of  universal  education.  Owen 
and  Frances  Wright,  one  of  the  humanitarians  of 
her  day,  carried  on  a  vigorous  agitation  for  educa- 
tion and  for  a  complete  progi-am  of  legislation  in  the 
interests  of  labor.  "Fanny  Wright"  societies  sprang 
up  all  through  the  country  and  largely  through  her 
influence  labor  was  drawn  into  its  first  political  ex- 
periments in  the  late  twenties. 

Similar  in  character  to  the  Owen  cooperative 
scheme  was  the  plan  of  Fourier  (a  French  socialist), 
advocated  in  America  by  Albert  Brisbane,  among 
others,  in  the  thirties  and  forties.  As  a  result  of 
this  ferment,  socialistic  colonies  sprang  up  in  differ- 


130         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

ent  parts  of  tlie  country,  and  many  leading  men, 
especially  in  New  England,  called  themselves  social- 
ists. Through  three  years  heginning  in  1841, 
Horace  Greeley  ran  in  the  New  York  Tribune  sl 
series  of  articles  advocating  Fourier's  ideas. 
Greeley  was  himself  associated  with  the  "socialists'^ 
of  that  day  and  puhlished  in  his  Recollections  of  a 
Busy  Life  two  interesting  chapters  setting  forth  his 
views. 

The  Marxian  Socialists. — Socialism  entered  upon 
a  new  phase  in  America  in  the  late  forties  and  fifties 
when  radical  German  refugees,  fleeing  from  the  per- 
secution of  the  Prussian  g€)vernment  that  followed 
the  disastrous  revolution  of  1848^  began  to  come  to 
the  United  States  in  large  niunhers.  About  the  same 
time,  two  Germans,  Karl  Marx  and  Eriedrich 
Engels,  issued  the  famous  "Conununist  Manifesto," 
setting  forth  a  new  and  radical  view  of  socialism. 
They  declared  that  all  history  was  the  history  of 
class  struggles  and  that  the  modern  struggle  between 
the  capitalists  and  laborers  would  end  in  the  tri- 
umph of  the  latter  and  the  establishment  of  a  social- 
ist society.  Marx  did  not  propose  to  rely,  like 
Robert  Owen,  on  persuading  people  tojwork  for  and 
establish,  out  of  the  goodness  of  their  hearts,  an  ideal 
commonwealth.  He  prophesied  that  it  would  come 
out  of  the  class  conflict  and  urged  workingmen  to 
help  on  the  process.     From  the  point  of  view  of 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        131 

M^jx  there  could  bo  no  final  partnership  between 
capital  and  labor. 

In  1864,  the  International  "Workingmen's  Associa- 
tion was  founded  by  Marx  and  the  British  trade 
unions  to  assist  the  unions  of  European  countries  in 
their  efforts  to  prevent  "scabbing"  by  immigrant 
labor.  In  this  subject,  American  labor  men  were 
deeply  concerned.  W.  H.  Sylvis,  an  American  labor 
leader,  who  had  tried  to  nationalize  the  unionist 
movement  here,  attempted  also  to  bring  American 
organized  labor  into  relations  with  the  international 
movement.  "When,  in  1867,  the  International 
Workingmen's  Association  deserted  Marxism  for  a 
time  and  went  over  to  political  action  along  lines 
advocated  by  another  German  leader,  Ferdinand 
Lassalle,  the  American  labor  movement  took  a  similar 
turn.  The  National  Labor  Union,  Sylvis'  enterprise 
(see  page  72),  was  political  in  its  purposes  though 
it  was  not  socialist  in  its  doctrines. 

IIliahle_tQ_.create  a  national  socialist  party,_Ameri- 
can  workingmen  of  radical  or  socialistic  tenden- 
cies kept  closely  in  touch  with  European  move- 
ments and  theories.  They  formed  several  socialist 
local  branches  of  the  International  Workingmen's, 
Association  before  1872.  These  branches  started  with 
German  groups  and  then  included  Erench  and 
Bohemian  groups.  In  1871  eight  such  locals  with  a 
membership  of  293  members  were  reported.  An 
American  section  founded  in  1870  claimed  to  be  "the 


132        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

direct  successor  if  not  the  actual  continuator  of  tlie 
industrial  congi-ess  and  labor  and  land  reform  move- 
ment of  twenty  and  twenty-five  years  ago."  This 
American  local  embraced  quite  a  number  of  "intel- 
lectuals." At  the  European  conference  of  1872  the 
view  was  generally  held  that  "the  native  Americans 
were  all  speculators  and  that  the  immigi-ants  alone 
constituted  the  wage-earning  class  in  America."  To 
save  the  International  from  the  control  of  anarchists 
in_J.872,  the  conservative  socialists  transferred  its 
headquarters  to  New  York,  and  "the  father  of 
American  socialism,"  F.  A.  Sorge,  carried  on  in 
this  country  the  fight  against  attempts  of  the  anar- 
cMsts  to  get  possession  of  the  socialist  movement. 
In  1873  the  German  section  established  a  weekly 
paper,  the  Arheiter-Zeitung. 

The  first  attempt  to  unify  and  ximericanize  the 
socialist  locals  was  made  at  a  convention  held  in  New 
YorTi  in  1874.  At  this  conference  an  effort  was 
made  to  combine  trade  unionism  with  political  ac- 
tion. On  this  point  the  convention  declared:  "The 
trade  union  is  the  cradle  of  the  labor  movement,  for 
working  people  naturally  turn  first  to  that  which 
affects  their  daily  life  and  they  consequently  com- 
bine first  with  their  fellows  by  trade.  It  therefore 
becomes  the  duty  of  the  members  of  the  International 
to  merely  assist  the  members  of  the  trade  unions 
and,  before  all,  to  lead  them  to  the  right  path,  i.e., 
to  internationalize  them  but  also  to  establish  new 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        133 

ones  wherever  possible.  The  economic  conditions 
are  driving  the  trade  union  with  irresistible  force 
from  the  economic  to  the  political  struggle  against 
the  propertied  classes — a  truth  which  is  known  to  all 
those  who  serve  the  labor  movement  with  open  eyes." 
At  this  convention  the  Social  Democratic  Party  was 
organized  and  it  responded  the  following  year  to  the 
invitation  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  to  join  in  the 
labor  conference  at  Pittsburgh.  The  socialists  tried 
to  capture  the  Pittsburgh  conference  for  socialism, 
but  their  efforts  only  added  to  the  factional  diffi- 
culties within  the  ranks  of  the  Knights.  When  the 
socialists  tried  to  invade  the  labor  movement  by  hold- 
ing mass  meetings  among  strikers,  they  found  them- 
selves in  open  conflict  with  tEe  publtc.  Their  halls 
were  raided,  their  meetings  broken  up,  their  speak- 
ers arrested,  and  their  leaders  driven  out  of  cities 
where  strikes  were  in  progress. 

A  second  attempt  at  political  organization  on  a 
considerable  sclle  was  made  at  J^ewark  in  1M7 
when  tFe  Sbciarist  Labor  party  was  formed.  This 
party  declared  that  the  members  should  "maintain 
friendly  relations  with  the  trade  unions  and  should 
promote  their  formation  upon  socialistic  principles." 
^It^rejDudiated  socialist  military  organizations  and 
offered  the  ballot  as  the  best  weapon  for  the  work- 
ingman.  It  was  augmented  in  numbers  in  1873, 
when  a  savage  "anti-socialist  law,"  passed  by  the 
German   government,   drove  thousands   of   socialist 


lU        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

refugees  to  America.  It  was  tJiis  element  and  the 
trade  union  element  in  the  United  States  that  pre- 
vented the  political  radicalism  of  the  National  Green- 
back party  from  sweeping  workingmen  into  the  fold 
of  the  farmers'  political  organization.  Nevertheless, 
the  socialists  soon  fell  out  with  trade  unionism,  pure 
and  simple,  and  in  time  the  Socialist  Labor  party 
denounced  trade  unionism  of  that  type  for  its  com- 
promising tactics  and  its  "political  trading." 

Socialists  and  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 
— Notwithstanding  the  hostility  of  the  Socialist 
Labor  party,  many  socialists  in  the  ranks  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  continued  their  ef- 
forts to  commit  the  Federation  to  socialist  principles 
and  independent  political  action.  At  each  succes- 
sive annual  convention  of  the  American  Federation, 
Mr.  Gompers  stood  his  ground  and  held  the  Federa- 
tion fast  to  the  original  doctrines.  It  is  true  that, 
from  time  to  time,  the  Federation  went  on  record  as 
approving  single  propositions  which  were  socialistic 
in  nature,  such  as  municipal  ownership  of  utili- 
ties ;  but  actions  of  this  character  are  quite  different 
from  endorsing  an  independent  political  party  of  the 
working  class  and  revolutionary  changes  in  the  cap- 
italistic system  of  ownership  and  production. 

The  Socialist  Labor  party  in  national  politics. — 
In  1892,  the  Socialist  Labor  party  held  a  national 
convention  in  New  York,  nominated  a  candidate  for 
president,  and  put  forth  a  platform  of  principles,  in- 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        135 

eluding  government  ownership  of  tlie  means  of  trans- 
portation and  communication,  municipal  ownership 
of  utilities,  progressive  income  and  inheritance  taxes, 
free  school  books,  universal _.£ILff rage,  the  recall,  and 
the  referendum.  This  platform  was  moderate  in 
tSoe'alid' contained  no  reference  to  the  revolutionary 
class  struggle.  The  candidate  in  1892  polled  about 
21,000  votes.  The  next  presidential  campaign,  the 
Socialist  Labor  party  became  more  radical  in  tone, 
declaring  for  the  solidarity  of  labor,  the  class  strug- 
gle against  capitalism,  and  the  collective  ownership 
of  the  machinery  of  production.  This  time  the  vote 
was  about  36,000.  At  each  successive  campaign  the 
Socialist  Labor  party  nominated  candidates,  issued 
a  platform,  and  carried  on  an  agitation  though  with 
diminishing  party  success.  The  vote  of  the  party 
in  1916  was  only  14,000. 

The  Socialist  party. — Dissatisfaction  with  the 
leadership  and  tactics  of  the  SocialisTXabor  party 
led  to  the  formation  in  1900  of  a  new  socialist  polit- 
ical organization,  known  at  first  by  the  name  of  the 
old  Social  Democratic  party,  and  a  year  later  as 
simply  the  Socialist  party.  The  party  in  1900  put 
forward  as  the  candidate,  Eugene  V.  Debs,  the  prom- 
inent leader  in  the  Pullman  strike  six  years  before, 
who  had  been  imprisoned  for  the  violation  of  an 
injunction.  It  polled  about  96,000  votes.  This 
new  Socialist  party  declared  "the  supreme  issue  in 
America  to-day   to  be  the  contest  of  the  working 


136         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

class  and  tlie  capitalist  class  for  the  possession  of  the 
powers  of  government."  It  set  forth  a  program  of 
'immediate  demands"  such  as  government  owner- 
ship of  monopolies  as  well  as  mines,  railways,  etc. 
At  each  presidential  election  since  1900  the  Social- 
ist party  has  entered  the  campaign  with  a  presiden- 
tial candidate  and  a  program.  While  the  language 
of  the  platform  varies  from  year  to  year,  the  spirit 
and  purpose  of  the  party  have  remained  practically 
unchanged.  The  presidential  vote  rose  to  901,000 
in  1912,  in  spite  of  the  radical  program  of  the  Pro- 
gressive party;  but  it  declined  in  1916  to  about 
600,000. 

Like  all  labor  and  radical  parties,  the  Socialist 
party  has~l)een  weakened  by  dissensions  and  splits.  In 
1905  a  Socialist  faction  helped  to  form  the  Indus-, 
trial.  Workers,  of  the  World.  They  were  forced  out 
of  the  party  later  owing  to  their  aiivpcacy  of  sabotage. 
A  serious  break  came  again  in  1917  when  the  organi- 
zation condemned  the  government  of  the  United 
States  for  entering  the  war  against  Germany  and 
avowed  open  hostility  to  the  war  program  of  the  gov- 
ernment. A  number  of  prominent  Socialists  left  the 
party  and  placed  loyalty  to  their  country  above  loyalty 
to  the  party.  Several  anti-war  Socialists  including 
the  former  candidate  for  President,  Mr.  Debs,  were 
tried,  convicted  and  imprisoned  for  their  opposition 
to  the  war.  The  membership  of  the  party  declined. 
Although  large  votes  were  polled  at  local  elections, 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        137 

as  at  Dayton^  Ohio,  and  jSTew  York  City  in  1917, 
it  appeared  that  the  party  as  a  political  body  had 
lost  prestige  and  influence  in  national  politics. 
Nevertheless,  the  ideas  of  municipal  and  government 
ownership  remained  as  prominently  before  the  pub- 
lic as  ever.  Further  inroads  upon  it  were  made  in 
1919_wlieii  the  more  radical  ^'Left/'  impatient  with 
the  slow  methods  of  political  agitation  and  fired  by 
the  revolution  in  Russia,  broke  away  from  the  Social- 
ist party  and  foundedjhe  Communist  party.  These 
new  radicals  issued  a  call  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
capitalist  system  by  labor  and  the  establishment  of 
the  "dictatorship  of  the  proletariat'^  as  the  beginning 
of  the  communist  commonwealth. 

4.    THE  AI^AECHISTS 

Definition. — Anarchy  is  a  vague  term.  There  is 
but  one  thing  on  which  the  anarchists  agree^nd  that 
is  hostility  to  the  modern  state  or  government.  They 
aiifer  profoundly  as  to  just  what  form  of  society 
thev  wish  to  substitute  and  how  it  is  to  be  brou&'ht 
about.  They  are  at  opposite  poles  from  the  socialists 
in  that  they  reject  the  coercive  authority  of  the  state 
over  the  individual.  Such  a  control  they  hold  to  be 
fatal  to  the  development  of  personal  liberty,  the 
right  of  a  person  to  do  as  he  pleases  and  develop  his 
personality  in  his  own  way.  While  socialists  and 
anarchists  are  sometimes  found  together  in  opposing 


138        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

the  policy  of  an  existing  government,  they  are  at 
swords'  points  on  all  other  questions.  For  the  most 
part  the  anarchists  dislike  modern  industrial  society 
and  see  the  hope  of  mankind  in  small  communities 
combining  agriculture  and  handicraft  and  govern- 
ing themselves.  In  this  they  are  reactionaries  fac- 
ing back  to  an  old  order  destroyed  by  steam  and 
machinery. 

History  of  anarchism. — The  history  of  anarchist 
theories  runs  back  to  ancient  Greek  days.  Anar- 
chistic books  are  found  scattered  all  along  through 
the  centuries.  The  advocates  of  large  individual 
freedom,  like  Herbert  Spencer  in  England,  verged 
over  in  that  direction  in  so  far  as  they  viewed  gov- 
ernment interference  with  industry  and  socialistic 
tendencies  as  dangerous  to  life,  liberty,  and  prop- 
erty. In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  anar- 
chy was  given  a  great  impulse  by  the  writings  of  the 
French  leader,  Proudhon,  who  declared  justice  to  be 
the  supreme  law,  and  tEe  Golden  Rule  the  guide  to 
human  relations.  ^^I  ought  to  respect  my  neighbor," 
he  said,  "and  to  make  others  respect  him  as  myself." 
He  rejected  all  government  saying  "the  government 
of  man  by  man  is  slavery."  In  three  phrases  he 
summed  up  his  philosophy:  "N'o  more  parties,  no 
more  authority,  absolute  liberty  of  man  and  citizen." 
Prom  Proudhon's  writings  a  whole  school  of  anar- 
chists developed.  To  his  influence  was  added  later 
the  influence  of  two  Russian  writers:  Bakunin  and 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        139 

Kropotkin.  When  Bakunin  entered  the  labor  move- 
ment he  was  able  to  split  the  congress  of  the  Inter- 
national Workingmen's  Association  in  1872,  carry- 
ing with  him  a  large  faction.  Bakunin  explained 
his  position  in  this  way:  ^^We  reject  all  legislation, 
all  authority,  all  privileged,  chartered,  official,  and 
legal  influence — even  if  it  were  created  by  universal 
suffrage — in  the  conviction  that  such  things  can  but 
redound  always  to  the  advantage  of  a  ruling  minority 
of  exploiters  and  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  most 
enslaved  minority."  He  urged  the  use  of  armed 
violence  in  overthrowing  the  existing  governments 
and  the  establishment  of  secret  societies  to  spread 
the  doctrine. 

Kropotkin,  though  an  enemy  of  centralized  govern- 
ment and  an  advocate  of  violence,  was  unlike  Baku- 
nin in  that  he  did  not  propose  to  establish  "absolute 
individual  liberty''  but  local  communism.  He  pro- 
posed to  form  local  cooperative  and  productive 
groups,  living  together  under  the  control  of  "loving 
treatment,  moral  influence,  and  liberty."  Kropot- 
kin's  celebrated  countryman,  Tolstoi,  while  embrac 
ing  anarchistic  doctrines,  rejected  all  violence.  He 
objected  to  the  state  because  it  was  founded  on  force, 
and  declared  the  supreme  law  of  life  should  be  the 
teachings  of  Christ,  with  love  of  manl^ind  as  the 
cornerstone.  He  advocated  meeting  force  by  passive 
resistance,  and  sought  to  exemplify  his  philosophy 
by  living  the  life  of  a  humble  peasant,  practicing  the 


140        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

love  and  mercy  which  he  preached.  It  was  in  Rus- 
sia under  the  rule  of  the  cruel  and  oppressive  mon- 
arch, the  Czar,  that  anarchy  flourished  like  the  green 
bay  tree.  The  soil  was  well  adapted  to  its  growth. 
Anarchism  in  America. — Persons  holding  theories 
tinged  with  anarchy  appeared  early  in  American  his- 
tory. Many  of  them  went  out  on  the  frontier  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  settlements  and  lived  the  life 
of  the  savage,  without  law  and  without  government, 
pr^acticing,  if  not  preaching,  anarchy.  Others  were 
theorists  who  looked  upon  government  as  an  evil  to 
be  avoided  as  much  as  possible.  This  was  but  the 
logical  conclusion  of  the  doctrine:  '^the  less  govern- 
ment, the  better.'^  The  "first  American  anarchist," 
as  he  is  called,  Josiah  Warren,  was  prominent  in  the 
labor  movement  in  the  thirties  and  forties.  He 
urged  workingmen  not  to  look  to  the  government 
for  help  but  to  form  "cooperative  or  communist 
colonies"  on  somewhat  different  lines  from  those  ad- 
vocated by  Fourier  and  Robert  Owen.  In  common 
with  all  the  humanitarians  of  his  time,  he  feared 
the  state  and  thought  that  the  way  out  of  poverty? 
could  be  found  in  private  cooperative  efforts  of 
workingmen.  The  result  would  finally  be,  he 
thought,  the  disappearance  of  the  government  as  a 
political  instrument.  Warren  was  followed  by  Amer- 
ican thinkers  of  the  same  school,  including  John 
Campbell,  Stephen  Pearl  Andrews,  and  Benja- 
man  R.  Tucker.     They  founded  papers,  wrote  books 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        141 

and  pamphlets,  and  carried  on  an  extensive  agitation 
on  the  fringe  of  the  labor  movement,  appealing 
always  for  the  support  of  members  of  the  wage- 
earning  class. 

The  Black  International. — Anarchy  entered  into 
a  new  phase  \di£n,  in  1881,  the  anarchists  of  Europe 
founded,  in  London,  the  International  Working  Peo- 
ple's Association,  known  as  the..Black  International. 
In  October  of  that  year  an  American  branch  was 
formed  in  Chicago  with  delegates  from  other  cities, 
especially  New  York.  The  members  declared  them- 
selves ready  to  "render  armed  resistance  to  encroach- 
ments upon  the  rights  of  the  workinginen."  They 
appealed  particularly  to  those  labor  organizations 
that  were  arming  themselves  secretlv  asrainst  the 
troops,  state  and  federal,  employed  in  strikes.  They 
endorsed  trade  union  organization  but  rejected  all 
political  action.  The  most  outstanding  leader  was 
a  German  anarchist,  Johann  Most,  who  had  been 
expelled  from  the  Socialist  ranks  and  had  suffered 
imprisonment  in  Germany  and  England  for  his  an- 
archist activities.  He  advocated  violence  in  the 
overthrow  of  church  and  state  and  "his  ideal  society 
was  an  agglomeration  of  loosely  federated  auton- 
omous gi'oups  of  producers."  Each  group  was  to 
follow  its  own  trade  and  ov/n  the  means  of  produc- 
tion. There  was  to  be  no  superior  over  the  group 
and  exchange  was  to  be  carried  on  through  the  me- 
dium of  paper  money.     Just  how  conflicts  among 


142        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

the  groups  were  to  be  avoided  or  settled  was  not 
clearly  set  forth. 

This  vague  philosophy,  strong  in  denunciation  of 
the  existing  order,  made  headway  especially  in 
Chicago  where  even  the  Central  Labor  Union  gave 
aid  and  support  and  marched  in  the  processions  of 
the  Black  International.  As  long  as  the  anarchists 
were  mainly  foreigners  and  few  in  number  and  con- 
fined their  activities  principally  to  discussions  of 
their  theories,  little  attention  was  paid  to  them. 
When,  however,  in  1885  a  great  demonstration  of 
the  unemployed  was  organized  by  the  anarchist 
leaders  and  the  English-speaking  workingmen  took 
part  in  the  proceeding  the  public  was  aroused.  The 
Chicago.  Arheiter-Zeitung  exultantly  exclaimed: 
^'Yesterday  the  typically  American  working-class 
carried  the  red  flag  through  the  streets  and  thereby 
proclaimed  its  solidarity  with  the  international  pro- 
letariat." The  next  year  occurred  a  serious  labor 
disturbance  in  connection  with  a  strike.  Working- 
men  were  raided  by  the  police,  without  warrant,  they 
claimed.  Subsequently  a  huge  mass  meeting  of 
workingmen  was  held  in  Haymarket  Square,  and 
the  police  in  full  force  arrived  upon  the  scene. 
Some  one  threw  a  bomb  which  killed  a  sergeant  in- 
stantly and  wounded  many  others.  Thereupon  «,he 
police  fired  upon  the  crowd. 

The  whole  city  was  thrown  into  a  panic  by  this 
affair.     The   press   called   for   the   immediate   and 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        143 

merciless  extermination  of  the  anarchists.  Several 
Internationalists  were  arrested.  Four  of  them  were 
hanged;  one  committed  suicide;  and  three  were  con- 
demned to  prison  where  thej  remained  until  par- 
doned in  1893  by  Governor  Altgeld.  It  was  not 
proved  at  the  trial  that  any  of  these  men  threw  the 
bomb  or  were  actually  implicated  in  the  bomb  throw- 
ing; but  it  was  shown  that  they  entertained  and 
preached  extreme  doctrines^  and  urged  violent  re- 
sistance in  case  of  collisions  with  the  police. 

American  public  opinion  was  deeply  stirred  over 
the  throwing  of  the  bomb  and  the  trial,  especially 
because  seven  of  the  eight  men  arrested  were  aliens. 
The  labor  world  was  stirred  also.  The  Knights  of 
Labor  refused  to  ask  for  clemency  for  one  of  the 
accused  who  had  been  a  Knight  for  many  years. 
They  took  the  ground  that  the  public  might  construe 
such  action  as  implying  sympathy  with  violent 
methods.  The  American  Federation  of  Labor,  on 
the  other  hand,  did  ask  for  clemency  for  all  the 
condemned  men,  while  repudiating  violent  methods 
in  strong  terms.  ^  Thoroughly  frightened  by  the  out- 
come of  the  Chicago  disaster  and  heartily  condemned 
by  public  opinion  and  organized  labor,  the  Black 
International  speedily  lost  its  hold.  Another  an- 
archist organization,  the  Red  International  (so 
called  from  the  red  cards  of  membership)  which  had 
been  running  parallel  with  the  Black  International, 
was  able  to  continue  its  operation  mainly  because  it 


144        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

was  opposed  to  violence  and  advocated  a  long  cam- 
paign of  peaceful  agitation  to  prepare  workingmen 
for  the  day  of  revolution. 

The  effect  of_the  Haymarket  riot  upon  the  or- 
ganized labor  movement  is  hard  to  gauge.  If  statisr 
tics  of  membership  may  be  taken  as  a  measure,  the 
slow  gi'owth  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
for  years  after  this  affair  and  the  dissolution  of  the 
Knights  of  Labor  would  seem  to  indicate  that  an- 
archistic affiliation  had  retarded  the  advance  of  the 
regular  labor  and  craft  organization.  Nevertheless, 
there  has  always  been  an  anarchist  group  attempting 
to  "Mtach  itself  to  organized  labor  and  influence  its 
counsels. 

5.    THE  INDUSTRIAL   WOEKERS   OF   THE   WORLD 

Since  the  seventies,  there  has  been  in  the  Ameri- 
can labor  movement  a  strong  group  of  leaders  who 
have  opposed  the  organization  of  the  working  class 
into  separate  crafts  or  trade  unions,  and  have  advo- 
cated the  formation  of  one  grand,  union  embracing 
all  workers  as  equal  and  alike  in  their  interests.  A 
number  of  purely  industrial  unions  were  early  formed 
on  this  basis,  and  the  Knights  of  Labor  represented 
a  very  vigorous  effort  in  this  direction.  The  idea 
was  never  lost  to  sight  in  the  labor  ranks  and  re- 
appeared in  1905  in  the  organization  at  Chicago  of 
the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World.     This  organi- 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        145 

zation  was  a  merger  of  (1)  the  Western  Labor 
Union,  formed  in  1898  through  the  efforts  of  the 
Western  Federation  of  Miners  and  called  in  1902 
the  American  Labor  Union;  (2)  the  Socialist  Labor 
party;  (3)  and  other  radical  groups  of  smaller  im- 
portance. Allj-Jhese  organizations  had  beeji  hos- 
tile to  the_American  Federation  of  Labor,  first  be- 
cause it  ^as  exclusive,  being  confined  to  the  more 
skilled  workers;  secondly,  because  it  accepted  the 
capi^list  sy»stem  and  the  trade  agreement  as  final; 
and  thirdly,  because  its  scheme  of  organization  and 
its  tactics  were  objectionable  to  the  radical  '^indus- 
trial democrats." 

The  program  and  methods  of  the  new  organiza- 
tion.— The  Industrial  Workers  really  introduced  no 
ideas  or  tactics  that  were  new  in  the  world.  They 
were  an  evidence  of  the  tenacity  of  old  labor  theories 
and  the  persistence  of  revolutionary  organizers. 
While  they  theoretically  accepted  the  socialist  doc- 
trine of  the  social  production  of  wealth  managed 
through  a  collectivist  state,  they  believed  that  the 
idea  was  too  complex  for  a  simple  working  person  to 
grasp.  They  were,  moreover,  uneasy  about  the 
gTOwth  of  state  socialism  fostered  by  the  middle 
classes.  They  feared  that  the  poorest  paid  and  un- 
organized working-man  might  suffer  quite  as  much 
under  the  coercive  authority  of  a  government  con- 
ducting industries  as  under  private  owners. 

Their  idea  was  to  organize  all  the  workers  in  each 


146         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

of  the  great  industries  into  one  big  industrial  union 
and  to  weld  the  organizations  so  formed  into  one 
national  industrial  organization.  Their  collectivist 
proposal  was  that  each  industry  was  to  be  managed 
by  those  employed  in  it  and  each  local  unit  by  those 
employed  in  that.  They  did  not  oppose  the  idea  of 
government,  but  distinctly  declared  that  there  must 
be  government  in  the  shop,  the  school  and  ''in  the 
conduct  of  the  public  services."  They  treated  wage 
bargaius  and  the  closed  shop  with  contempt,  regard- 
ing the  best  of  bargains  as  mere  concessions  which 
labor  had  to  make  in  its  extremity.  While  approving 
the  use  of  the  ballot  to  gain  possession  of  the  exist- 
ing government  they  declared  that  the  great  revolu- 
tion was  to  come  through  the  action  of  the  workers 
in  their  several  shops  and  industries  in  seizing  the 
plants,  tools,  and  materials  with  which  they  worked. 
Being,  many  of  them,  migratory  laborers,  they  could 
not  always  vote  themselves. 

They  argued  that  the  division  of  laborers  into 
crafts,  drawing  closer  and  closer  with  employers  in 
interlocking  contracts,  tended  to  weld  the  skilled 
workmen  and  the  capitalists  into  one  class  opposed 
to  the  masses  of  unorganized  workers.  They  saw 
in  the  craft  union  something  monopolistic,  the  craft 
limiting  apprenticeship  and  resisting  all  improve- 
ments in  production  that  change  the  old  methods. 
They  saw  in  the  internecine  warfare  going  on  among 
the  crafts  a  source  of  pleasure  and  strength  to  the 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        147 

employers.  They  declared  labor  to  be  broken  into 
bits  and  the  capitalists  to  be  taking  advantage  of  tbe 
situation.  Therefore  they  began  to  work  for  solidar- 
ity. They  took  np  the  cry  of  the  Knights  of  Labor, 
"An  injury  to  one  is  the  concern  of  all,"  and  the 
socialist  slogan,   "Each  for  all  and   all   for  each." 

In  order  to  arouse  the  interest  and  cooperation  of 
the  very  poorest  v^orkers,  the  Industrial  Workers 
fixed  the  initiation  fees  and  dues  at  a  low  figure. 
They  gave  large  autonomy  to  the  local  unit.  They 
trusted  to  the  quick  and  effective  strike  because  their 
funds  would  not  permit  the  prolonged  battles  that 
the  well  financed  trades  unions  could  wage.  In  case 
of  the  failure  of  the  strike  and  the  return  of  the 
workmen  at  the  old  wage  or  worse,  they  advocated 
sabotage,  that  is,  the  stoppage  of  machinery  or  some 
other  interference  with  the  industrv  so  as  to  check 
production.  In  short,  their  tactics  were  to  win  con- 
cessions by  short  strikes  and  penalize  employers  if 
they  lost  by  curtailing  profits  as  far  as  possible. 
Sabotage  was  not  new  when  the  Industrial  Workers 
took  it  up.  It  had  been  practiced  by  the  Knights 
in  the  railway  strike  of  1885,  but  it  was  brought 
prominently  to  the  attention  of  the  world  as  an  in- 
strument in  labor  warfare  by  the  action  of  the  French 
unionists,  or  syndicalists,  early  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury. 

Strikes  of  the  Industrial  Workers. — The  year  fol- 
lowing its  organization,  the  Industrial  Workers  en- 


148        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

tered  a  strike  at  Goldfield,  Nevada,  where  a  contest 
between  conservatives  and  radicals  in  the  labor 
camp,  similar  to  the  old  battle  between  the  Knights 
and  the  American  Federation,  was  going  on.  In  1907 
the  western  miners  withdrew  from  the  Industrial 
Workers,  depriving  them  of  their  strongest  financial 
and  moral  support.  The  next  year  the  brewery 
workers,  also  a  powerful  union,  split  off.  In  1908 
the  Socialist  Labor  Party  element  withdrew  and  set 
itself  up  as  a  separate  I.  W.  W.  group. 

These  defections  were  partly  offset  in  1912  by  a 
great  strike  in  Lawrence,  Massachusetts,  where  the 
textile  workers  struck  in  a  body  and  waged  a  spec- 
tacular battle  against  the  employers.  A  Congres- 
sional investigation  revealed  the  distressing  condi- 
tions that  prevailed  in  a  large  section  of  the  textile 
industry,  and  the  spirited  agitation  of  the  radical 
labor  leaders  brought  the  membership  of  the  Indus- 
trial Workers  up  to  30,000.  Later  strikes  at  Pater- 
son,  'New  Jersey,  for  example,  were  less  successful 
and  it  was  clear  that  the  organization  could  not 
make  rapid  headway  in  membership  and  strength 
against  the  more  conservative  American  Federation 
of  Labor.     The  strike  was  long  and  funds  were  low. 

During  the  War  against  Germany  the  Industrial 
Workers  collided  with  the  government  on  a  number 
of  occasions.  Their  leader,  William  D.  Haywood, 
and  several  other  members  of  the  organization  were 
indicted  and  imprisoned  under  the  Espionage  act. 


REVOLUTIONARY  PHILOSOPHY        149 

Federal  and  state  laws  were  enacted  providing  pen- 
alties for  acts  of  sabotage.  The  Industrial  Workers 
were  put  in  the  class  of  ^^outlawed"  labor  organiza- 
tions. It  cannot  be  said,  however,  that  the  ideas 
which  they  supported  wea-e  without  effect.  The 
Plumb  plan  for  government  ownership  of  the  rail- 
ways and  management  by  the  organized  workers  and 
practical  experiments  in  management-sharing  within 
big  plants  bore  traces  of  ^'industrial  democracy." 
In  short,  the  fundamental  ideas  of  the  Industrial 
Workers  are  old,  and  have  lasted  throughout  the 
history  of  the  American  labor  movement  with  singu- 
lar persistency. 


CHAPTEK  XII 
LABOR  AND  THE  WOELD  WAR 

Contrast  with  the  position  of  labor  in  the  Civil 
War. — During  the  Civil  War  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  a  committee  to  control  labor  standards  for 
war  clothing,  equal  pay  for  equal  work  without  sex 
discrimination,  government  wage  scales  regularly 
made  in  consultation  with  labor  organizations,  or 
labor  representation  on  war  boards.  As  we  have 
seen,  labor  organization  itself  at  that  time  was  too 
demoralized  and  weak  to  exercise  much  influence 
on  the  course  of  events.  The  Civil  War,  however, 
stimulated  organization  so  that  labor  was  stronger 
at  the  close  of  the  struggle  than  at  its  beginning.  The 
progi-ess  made  by  labor  in  organization  and  power 
since  the  sixties  is  well  illustrated  by  its  changed 
position  during  the  World  War. 

The  effect  of  the  war  on  industry. — As  in  the  case 
of  the  Civil  War,  the  European  conflict  gave  a  great 
impetus  to  American  industry.  The  demand  for 
manufactured  commodities  as  well  as  foodstuffs  be- 
came enormous;  the  demand  for  labor  increased  ac- 
cordingly. European  immigi-ation  was  practically 
stopped;   prices  rose;   labor  called  for  higher  and 

150 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  151 

higher  wages  to  meet  the  rising  costs  of  living  and 
got  them;  and  the  trade  unions  grew  rapidly  in 
membership  and  the  number  of  locals.  As  before, 
prosperity  contributed  to  the  advancement  and 
strength  of  organized  labor. 

"This  is  labor's  war." — The  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  accepted  the  war  as  its  own  democratic 
struggle.  The  Executive  Committee  issued  the  defi- 
nite statement  in  February,  1018,  that  ^^this  is 
labor's  war.''  Knowing  that  from  three  to  twenty 
industrial  workers  were  essential  for  the  equipment 
of  every  soldier  in  the  field,  Mr.  Gompers,  at  the 
first  sign  of  American  participation  in  the  war,  took 
steps  to  guarantee  that  equipment.  At  a  conference 
of  workers  summoned  by  him  on  March  12,  1917, 
at  which  the  Railway  Brortherhoods  were  represented 
as  well  as  the  Federation  of  Labor,  organized  labor 
accepted  the  war  whole-heartedly  and  only  asked  for 
certain^siEipulations  in  return  for  its  effective  co- 
operation; namely,  trade-union  working  standards 
in  war  work,  equal  pay  for  equal  work  so  that  stand- 
ards of  living  might  not  be  lowered  by  the  inevitable 
drafting  of  women  into  industry  in  war  time ;  and  the 
representation  of  labor  on  war  boards.  Pro-war 
socialists  joined  with  trade  unionists  in  the  summer 
of  1917  to  form  the  American  Alliance  for  Labor 
and  Democracy. 

Members  of  th.e  unions  who  were  pacifists  stren-, 
uously   objected   to   labor's   acceptance  of  the  war 


152         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

idea.  They  felt  that  labor's  industrial  position  was 
imperiled  by  its  attitude  and  they  formed  that  same 
summer  the  Workmen's  Council  for  the  Maintenance 
of  Labor's  Rights.    Its  life  was  ineffective  and  brief. 

Labor  in  the  war  government. — The  loyal  stand 
of  Mr.  Gompers  and  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  was  immediately  appreciated.  The  necessity 
of  avoiding  disturbances  in  the  war  industries, 
coupled  with  the  knowledge  of  the  strength  of  or- 
ganized labor,  led  the  government  to  accept,  in  the 
main,  the  labor  stipulations,  especially  about  labor 
representation  in  the  war  administration.  Mr. 
Gompers  was  at  once  placed  on  tlie  Advisory  Com- 
mittee of  seven  to  help  the  Council  of  National  De- 
fense as  chairman  in  charge  of  labor  relations.  In 
that  capacity  he  was  largely  instrumental  in  pre- 
venting the  relaxation  of  labor  laws  during  the  war. 
Only  four  states  broke  down  their  labor  legislation 
and  only  one  of  these,  Massachusetts,  enforced  the 
modifications. 

Eventually  organized  labor  was  represented  on  the 
coal,  fuel,  food  committees,  on  the  war  industries 
and  emergency .  construction  boards,  and,  of  even 
more  significance,  on  the  treasury  committee  on  the 
taxation  of  war  profits. 

The  chief  labor  administrator  as  an  important 
Cabinet  member. — Labor  as  a  real  factor  in  the 
shaping  of  policies  was  still  more  clearly  seen  with 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  153 

the  rise  of  the  Secretary  of  Labor,  W.  B.  Wilson,  a 
former  miner,  to  a  position  of  positive  influence 
in  the  Cabinet.  Two  boards  were  organized  largely 
on  his  initiative  to  perform  the  duties  of  labor  ad- 
ministration. First  of  these  was  the  N'ational  War 
Labor  Board  created  in  April,  1918,  to  adjust  dis- 
pixtes  between  employers  and  employees.  Some 
1500  cases  came  before  this  board  for  adjudication 
and  in  general  its  awards  were  accepted.  The  sec- 
ond of  these,  the  War  Labor  Policies  Board  created 
in  June,  1918,  was  charged  with  laying  down  the 
principles  to  govern  the  relations  between  capital 
and  labor  in  all  the  adjustments  made  during  the 
war.  These  principles  dealt  with  collective  bargain- 
ing and  protective  standards  of  health  and  safety. 

Both  capital  and  labor  being  represented  on  these 
boards  a  truce  was  virtually  declared  to  the  effect 
that  output  was  not  to  be  limited  by  strikes  or  lock- 
outs and  both  sides  were  to  sacrifice  in  the  matter  of 
wages  "and  profits.  Collective  bargaining  was  ac- 
cepted with  an  arbitration  instead  of  a  strike  provi- 
sion and  established  safeguards  for  health  were  to 
be  maintained.  Th^ei^t-hour  day  was  to J)e  con- 
tinued where  it  existed  by  statute  and  applied  as 
widely  elsewhere  as  necessities  for  supplies  and  the 
health  of  workers  would  permit  in  the  opinion  of 
high  federal  authority.  A  living  wage  for  all  work- 
ers, skilled  and  unskilled,  was  called  for.  Standards 
governing  the  work  of  women  acting  as  substitutes 


154         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEM^^NT 

for  men  were  also  fixed  to  include  tlie  eight-hour 
day,  one  day  of  rest  in  seven,  prohibition  of  night 
work  and  of  industrial  home  work,  equal  pay  and 
health  protection.  Women  advisers  representing  or- 
ganized women  workers  and  social  workers  were 
drawn  into  the  war  administration  to  formulate  and 
watch  over  the  application  of  these  principles. 

The  Department  of  Labor  became  one  of  the  war 
centers  of  the  nation.  It  numbered  among  its 
duties  the  insuring  of  a  labor  supply,  the  protection 
of  labor  interests,  the  collection  of  facts  and  their 
dissemination,  industrial  housing,  transportation,  the 
standardization  of  working  conditions  and  wages, 
and  the  establishment  of  uniform  labor  clauses  in  all 
government  contracts.  Owing  to  the  number  of  agen- 
cies controlling  labor  finally  brought  under  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Department,  labor  was  said  to  be  "in 
the  saddle." 

A  feminist  problem. — Women  who  replaced  men 
worked  mainly  in  machine  shops  such  as  munition 
plants,  automobile  factories  and  repair  shops.  In 
January,  1918,  the  most  authoritative  estimate 
placed  the  number  of  women  making  war  supplies  at 
^,1,266,000.  They  were  also  used  extensively  on 
steam  and  electric  railroads  in  a  variety  of  ways. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  phases  of  the  new  in- 
dustrial position  of  w^omen  developed  in  the  street 
railway  service^  in  Cleveland  toward  the  end  of 
the  war.      A  definite  feminist  movement  appeared 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  155 

there.  The  women,  on  the  one  hand,  declared  their 
inherent  right  to  choose  their  own  occupations  in 
face  of  grand  jury  declarations  that  the  street  cars 
were  no  place  for  women.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
transit  employees'  unions  showed  a  decided  reluc- 
tance to  admit  women  as  members,  preferring  to 
shut  them  out  of  the  service  altogether.  Suffragist 
sympathizers  with  the  women  and  the  l^ational 
Women's  Trade  Union  League  stood  for  the  right 
of  the  women  to  keep  their  employment  though  they 
recognized  that  the  conditions  of  that  employment 
could  be  improved.  The  federal  War  Labor  Board 
overruled  the  feminists  and  the  male  trade  unionists 
carried  tlie  day. 

Labor  disturbances  during  the  war. — In  spite  of 
labor's  official  acceptance  of  the  war  as  its  own  and 
its  share  in  labor  administration  with  its  manifold 
machinery  for  watchfulness  and  adjustment,  all  was 
not  smooth  sailing  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 
According  to  the  report  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  there  were  1515  strikes  in  1918  involving 
234,466  workers  and  costing  $1,474,380.79.  Large 
as  was  this  number  of  strikes  it  was  claimed  that  it 
was  below  the  normal  rate.  It  is  also  recorded  that 
203,876  of  the  strikers  materially  improved  their 
conditions  of  labor. 

Among  the  disputes^  seriously  affecting  war  indus- 
tries was  a  very  brief  strike  called  by  the  Railway 
Brotherhoods  shortly  before  the  declaration  of  war 


156        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

in  March,  1917,  as  a  protest  against  delays  in  ap- 
plying the  Adamson  eight-hour  law.  The  immediate 
yielding  of  the  railway  managers  through  govern- 
ment pressure  prevented  the  stoppage  of  the  railway 
sei'vice.  To  facilitate  the  transportation  of  troops 
and  supplies  the  government  took  over  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  railroads  in  Decemher  of  that  year. 
Government  management  of  the  telegraph  and  ex- 
press services  soon  followed. 

The  strike  called  by  the  International  Union  of 
Mine,  Mill  and  Smelter  Workers,  one  of  the  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  organizations,  in  Bisbee,  Arizona,  led 
to  a  local  civil  war  which  aroused  the  whole  country. 
The  mob  spirit  developed  among  citizens  who 
charged  the  striking  miners  with  pro-Germanism  and 
revolutionary  intent  fostered,,  by  Industrial  Workers 
of  the  World  agitators.  Miners  and  their  sympa- 
thizers were  deported  by  citizens,  who  took  the  law 
into  their  own  hands.  It  was  not  until  federal 
troops  fed,  guarded  and  returned  the  deported  strik- 
ers to  their  homes  that  quiet  was  restored  and  the 
authority  of  the  government  recognized.  As  a  result 
of  a  government  investigation,  several  leading  citi- 
zens were  indicted. 

In  the  lumber  regions  of  Washington  and  Oregon, 
where  material  for  airplanes  was  secured,  for  one 
thing,  an  outbreak  resembling  the  Bisbee  trouble 
occurred  in  July  and  August,  1917.  This  time  it 
was  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  who  called 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  157 

the  strike  and  their  demand  was  for  an  eight-hour 
day.  Eventually  the  lumber  operators  conceded  the 
demand,  but  not  until  the  federal  troops  were  again 
used,  and  much  bitterness  created  in  all  circles.  The 
general  lawlessness  that  such  labor  disputes  aroused, 
and  the  hysteria  that  provoked  lynchings  and  mur- 
ders, called  forth  a  protest  from  President  Wilson 
against  the  mob  spirit.  That  unfortunately  did  not 
end  all  the  race  rioting  and  anti-alien  demonstra- 
tions, most  of  which  had  their  basis  in  strife  between 
capital  and  labor. 

Labor  at  home  affected  by  labor  abroad. — The 
course  of  events  in  Europe  during  the  war  exercised 
a  marked  influence  on  the  development  of  labor 
opinion  in  the  United  States.  The  Russian  Revolu- 
tion and  the  establishment  of  a  government  pro- 
fessing to  represent  only  the  working  class  fired  the 
imagination  of  the  radically  inclined  workers  in  this 
country.  The  subsequent  Revolution  in  Germany  and 
the  election  of  a  socialist  saddle-maker  to  the  presi- 
dency of  the  new  republic,  though  in  fact  conserva- 
tive as  compared  with  the  overturn  in  Russia,  was 
watched  w^ith  keen  interest  by  the  labor  movement  in 
America.  Perhaps  of  a  still  greater  significance  to 
American  trade  unionists  was  the  formation  of  a 
British  Labor  Party  of  "han-d  and  brain  workers" 
with  a  state  socialist  program  which  it  explained  as 
an  attempt  to  build  a  new  social  order. 

Mr.  Gompers  and  the  pro-war  Socialists  realized 


158         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

full  well  the  interaction  of  labor  unrest  and  propa- 
ganda. Through  the  Alliance  for  Labor  and  De- 
mocracy they  continually  tried  to  hold  organized  la- 
bor to  the  main  issue  of  the  war.  They  interpreted 
the  war  again  and  again  to  labor  at  home.  They 
went  abroad  to  explain  to  foreign  workers  the  loyal 
position  of  American  labor  with  a  view  to  prevent- 
ing labor  in  the  allied  countries  from  swinging  to 
pacifism  and  ^^Bolshevism/'  thus  weakening  the 
prosecution  of  the  war. 

Mr.  Gompers'  labor  dream. — Mr.  Gompers  looked 
ahead  in  "labor's  war  of  democracy  against  autoc- 
racy" to  a  magnificent  consummation  in  the  peace 
settlement.  Labor  was  to  receive  a  forward-looking 
charter  of  freedom  binding  on  all  the  signatory  na- 
tions. This  charter  was  to  be  developed  through  a 
League  of  Nations  with  its  labor  representatives  in 
the  same  intimate  and  effective  relation  which  they 
had  enjoyed  in  their  own  national  governments  dur- 
ing the  war.  The  industry  and  loyalty  of  Labor  had 
contributed  largely  to  the  outcome  of  the  struggle,  in 
his  mind,  and  now  labor's  invaluable  social  con- 
tribution to  democracy  was  to  be  recognized  defi- 
nitely and  internationally.  A  new  milestone  was 
to  be  reached  and  passed  when  labor  thus  became  an 
equal  partner  with  capital  in  industrial  manage- 
ment the  world  over. 

Recognition  of  labor  in  the  Peace  Treaty. — Rec- 
ommendations were   presented  to   the  Peace  Con- 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  159 

ference  by  labor  organizations  in  various  countries. 
American  organized  labor  felt  that  it  was  influential 
in  helping  to  secure  the  nine  specific  clauses  in  the 
treaty.  These  labor  clauses  gi-anted  to  employees 
the  right  to  organize  for  all  lawful  purposes ;  a  wage 
in  harmony  with  a  reasonable  standard  of  living  ac- 
cording to  the  time  and  country ;  an  eight-hour  day ; 
one  day's  rest  in  seven;  abolition  .of  child  labor; 
equal^ay  for  equal  work  of  men  and  women.  A  draft 
convention  also  incorporated  in  the  treaty,  provided 
for  a  permanent  organization  to  promote  the  inter- 
national regTilation  of  labor  conditions. 

The  preamble  of  the  draft  convention  is  of  deep 
significance  because  it  shows  the  first  world  recog- 
nition of  labor  movements  and  labor  claims.  It 
reads : 

Wheeeas,  The  League  of  Nations  has  for  its  objects 
the  establishment  of  universal  peace,  and  such  a  peace 
can  be  established  only  if  it  is  based  upon  social  justice ; 
and 

Whereas,  conditions  of  labor  exist  involving  such 
injustice,  hardship  and  privation  to  large  numbers  of 
people  as  to  produce  unrest  so  great  that  the  peace  and 
harmony  of  the  world  are  imperiled ;  and  an  improve- 
ment of  these  conditions  is  urgently  required;  as,  for 
example,  by  the  regulation  of  the  hours  of  work,  includ- 
ing the  establishment  of  a  maximum  working  day  and 
week,  the  regulation  of  the  labor  supply,  the  prevention 
of  unemployment,  the  provision  of  an  adequate  living 


160         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

wage,  the  protection  of  the  worker  against  sickness,  dis- 
ease and  injury  arising  out  of  his  employment,  the  pro- 
tection of  children,  young  persons  and  women,  provision 
for  old  age  and  injury,  protection  of  the  interests  of 
workers  when  employed  in  countries  other  than  their 
own,  recognition  of  the  principle  of  freedom  of  associa- 
tion, the  organization  of  technical  and  vocational  educa- 
tion and  other  measures ; 

Whereas,  Also,  the  failure  of  any  nation  to  adopt 
humane  conditions  of  labor  is  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
other  nations  which  desire  to  improve  the  conditions  in 
their  own  countries. 

The  International  Labor  Conference. — Thejfirst  in-, 
ternational  labor  conference  held  in  accordance  with 
the  term.s_o^f  the  treaty  assembled  in  Washington  in 
October,  1919.  Considerable  friction  developed  in 
the  conference  because  the  governmental  and  official 
representatives  predominated  over  the  bona  fide  labor 
men.  The  representatives  from  the  Central  powers 
were  admitted  to  membership,  notwithstanding 
strong  opposition  from  some  delegates.  The  con- 
ference laid  out  a  program  to  be  recommended  to  the 
League  of  N'ations.  The  chief  features  of  it  were 
the  eight-hour  day,  the  forty-eight  hour  week,  govern- 
ment provision  for  the  unemployed,  the  limitation 
of  the  labor  of  women  and  children  and  provision 
for  the  education  of  children  employed  in  industries. 

The  Women's  International  Labor  Conference. — 
Wmagnwere  notJji:ect]..:5L„repi?<2sented  at  the  labor 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  161 

conference  in  spite  of  their  requests  for  representa- 
tion. The  National  Women's  Trade  Union  League, 
on  the  suggestion  of  British  and  French  working 
women,  called  an  International  Working  Women's 
Conference  which  met  in  Washington  simultaneously 
with  the  men's  conference.  There  were  no  govern- 
mental representatives  at  the  women's  conference 
naturally.  Nor  was  the  conference  recognized  hy 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor.  Delegates  were 
present  from  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy,  Norway, 
Sweden,  Japan,  Argentina,  Czecho-Slovakia,  Poland 
and  Canada,  as  well  as  the  United  States.  Reso- 
lutions were  sent  to  the  men's  conference  calling  for 
international  protective  legislation  for  mothers,  a 
forty-four  hour  week,  better  provisions  against  unem- 
ployment, prohibition  of  night  work  for  women  and 
for  men  except  in  case  of  essential  public  service,  and 
the  raising  of  the  age  of  working  children  to  sixteen. 
Protective  legislation  for  women  had  long  been  one 
of  the  main  purposes  of  the  National  Women's  Trade 
Union  League,  whose  activities  centered  mainly  on 
the  eight-hour  day,  the  minimum  wage,  health  in- 
surance and  abolition  of  night  work  for  women.  It 
added  to  these,  following  the  rush  of  women  into 
federal  service,  a  demand  for  equal  opportunity  and 
pay  in  the  Civil  Service.  The  International  Work- 
ing Women's  Conference  had  the  immediate  effect 
of  encouraging  the  economic  organization  of  women 
in  this  country  and  arousing  their  political  enthusi- 


162         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

asm.  It  also  spurred  those  who  opposed  restrictive 
legislation  for  women  to  greater  propaganda  for 
"Equal  Opportunity." 

The  Pan-American  Labor  Conference. — The 
strained  relations  that  existed  between  the  United 
States  and  Mexico  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war  led 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  to  take  steps  to 
bind  the  labor  movements  of  the  two  countries  closer 
together.  After  a  visit  to  Mexico  by  an  American 
labor  mission,  a  permanent  Pan-American  Labor 
Federation  was  formed  in  November,  1918.  Impetus 
toward  this  movement  was  given  also  by  the  fact 
that  the  Pan-American  Union  had  no  labor  repre- 
sentation in  its  councils.  Five  years  previously 
the  American  Federation  had  voted  against  inter- 
vention in  Mexico  and  had  congratulated  the  Mexi- 
cans on  their  "war  for  freedom."  It  now  organized 
to  promote  more  friendly  relations. 

Reconstruction  program  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor. — Perhaps  the  first  realization  that 
labor's  war  gains  would  not  just  take  care  of  them- 
selves came  to  Mr.  Gompers  and  the  Federation 
when  a  decided  movement  toward  wage  reductions 
set  in  with  the  signing  of  the  armistice.  An  em- 
phatic protest  was  immediately  issued  calling  atten- 
tion again  to  the  part  labor  had  played  in  the  war 
and  the  necessity  for  equal  standards  for  labor  in 
peace  times. 

To  make  those   gains  permanent  the  American 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  163 

Federation  drew  up  a  reconstruction  program  as  did 
other  labor  and  civic  associations  in  this  country. 
The  program  was  sanctioned  by  the  annual  conven- 
tion at  Atlantic  City  in  the  summer  of  1919.  A 
summary  of  that  program  follows: 

Responsibility  of  the  government  for  legislation  to 
prevent  child  labor  exploitation; 

The  participation  of  the  people  in  cooperative  agencies 
for  food  and  commodities  distribution ; 

Federal  and  state  regulation  of  corporations  including 
the  increasing  of  capital  stock  and  bonded  indebtedness ; 

Democracy  in  industry  whereby  the  employers'  inter- 
ference with  the  right  of  workers  to  organize  should  be 
made  a  criminal  offense  and  workers  should  have  a  voice 
within  industry  and  commerce  similar  to  their  political 
participation ; 

Government  ownership  and  operation  of  docks  and 
wharves ; 

The  development  of  state  colleges  and  universities  for 
educational  opportunities  for  all  people; 

The  joint  supervision  of  trade  unionists  and  employ- 
ers in  federal,  state  and  municipal  employment  agencies ; 

No  employment  agencies  to  be  operated  for  profit ; 

Maintenance  of  free  speech  and  assembly; 

Public  and  semi-public  utilities  to  be  owned,  operated 
or  regulated  by  the  government  in  the  interest  of  the 
public ; 

Government  supervision  and  aid  for  housing  facilities 
and  home  building; 

Immigration  restriction  and  regulation; 

Regulation  of  land  ownership; 


1G4         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

Legislation,  reenacted  by  Congress  or  state  legislatures 
after  having  been  declared  -anconstitutional  by  the  Su- 
preme Court,  to  become  law ; 

Government  control  of  the  merchant  marine  to  pro- 
tect rights  of  seamen; 

Opposition  to  militarism; 

Democratic  organization  and  control  of  militia; 

Non-partisan  political  policy  for  labor ; 

Right  of  public  employees  to  collective  bargaining; 

Employment  and  land  allotment  for  discharged  sol- 
diers ; 

Tax  upon  incomes,  inheritances  and  land  values; 

Right  of  teachers  to  organize  and  affiliate  with  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor ; 

Opposition  to  the  doctrinaire  economists'  position  on 
the  causes  and  remedies  for  unemployment; 

The  wage  question,  as  the  fundamental  economic 
and  social  question; 

Federal  and  state  ownership  and  operation  of  water 
ways  and  water  power; 

Equal  pay  for  equal  work ; 

State  insurance  to  supplant  employers'  liability  insur- 
ance operated  for  profit. 

Organized  Labor  and  the  "Reds.'' — In  the  autumn 
of  the  same  year  (1919)  the  officers  of  the  Federa- 
tion made  an  attack  on  the  Communists  and  other 
radicals  in  the  labor  movement,  disclaiming  on  the 
part  of  organized  labor  any  sympathy  with  revolu- 
tionary theories  or  activities.  It  fell  to  the  lot  of 
the  Secretary  of  Labor,  through  his  subordinate,  the 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  165 

Commissioner  of  Immigi-ation,  to  enforce  the  act  of 

1918,  excluding  and  expelling  from  the  United 
States  all  anarchists  and  persons  calling  for  the  vio- 
lent overthrow  of  the  existing  order.  The  provisions 
of  this  Act  were  not  limited  to  the  war  emergency. 
At  the  end  of  the  year  the  first  shipload  of  deported 
persons  was  sent  to  Europe  and  hundreds  of  other 
radicals  were  ^^rounded  up"  for  deportation. 

Politics  again  at  work — ^the  American  Labor 
Party. — As  a  result  of  European  influence  and 
domestic  factors  like  the  high  cost  of  living,  the 
renewed  battle  with  the  courts  gi-owing  out  of  the 
use  of  injunctions  in  the  miners'  strike,  the  failure 
of  the  steel  strike  in  1919-20,  free-speech  interfer- 
ence and  other  forces,  signs  of  another  political 
uprising  appeared  within  the  American  labor  move- 
ment at  the  close  of  the  Great  War.  The  American 
Federation  of  Labor   at  its  annual  convention  in 

1919,  it  is  true,  declared  its  adherence  to  the  tra- 
ditional policy  of  opposition  to  independent  political 
action.  N'evertheless  local  organizations  affiliated 
with  it,  especially  in  New  York  and  Chicago,  broke 
away  from  the  leadership  of  the  Federation  on  this 
point,  and  formed  independent  local  labor  parties. 
The  central  federated  unions  of  both  these  cities 
went  over  in  a  body  and  officially  to  independent 
political  action.  The  success  in  the  municipal 
elections  of  1919  was  not  particularly  encouraging 
to  the  sponsors  of  the  movement  but  they  called  a 


166        AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

national  convention  of  trade  unionists  in  Chicago 
in  November  of  that  year  and  launched  a  national 
American  Labor  Party. 

The  convention  was  composed  of  representatives 
from  all  parts  of  the  country,  delegates  attending 
from  thirty-five  states,  from  fifty-five  of  the  most 
important  unions  in  the  American  Federation,  and 
from  the  railway  Brotherhoods.  Between  1,200  and 
1,500  delegates  were  present.  The  Mine  Workers, 
for  example,  had  179  delegates ;  the  Machinists,  40 ; 
the  Railway  Brotherhoods,  65.  Women  appeared  as 
actual  voters  or  as  potential  voters^ — the  ratification 
of  the  federal  suffrage  amendment  being  practically 
certain. 

The  purpose  of  this  new  party  as  stated  in  its 
Constitution  was  the  "union  of  hand  and  brain'^ 
workers  for  "political,  social  and  industrial  democ- 
racy." Membership  was  not  to  be  confined  to  union- 
ists alone  nor  to  wage  earners  alone.  The  Constitu- 
tion provided  for  a  National  Committee  made  up  of 
two  delegates  from  each  state,  one  of  whom  was  to 
be  a  woman;  for  a  referendum  to  members  on  cam- 
paign issues;  against  the  nomination  of  candidates 
on  tickets  of  the  old  parties;  for  the  expulsion  of 
any  member  accepting  the  nomination  of  another 
party;  and  for  working  alliances  if  possible  with 
"farmers'  leagues  and  other  progressive  organizations 
supporting  the  Labor  Party's  program  and  accept- 
ing its  ideals." 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  167 

The  platform  consisted  of  thirty  plants,  compris- 
ing, according  to  one  description,  "importations 
from  Great  Britain,  legacies  from  the  Bull  Moose 
Party,  and  reforms  for  which  the  American  Fed- 
eration has  long  stood  and  never  voted."  These 
planks  included  demands  for  the  repeal  of  the 
Espionage  act;  free  speech  and  assemblage;  a  League 
of  l^ations  built  on  the  "fourteen  points";  national- 
ization of  "all  basic  industries  which  require  large 
scale  production  and  are  in  reality  upon  a  non- 
competitive basis,"  like  railways,  mines  and  forests; 
the  Plumb  railway  plan;  steeply  graduated  income 
and  inheritance  taxes;  government  management  of 
the  banking  business;  a  national  executive  budget; 
abolition  of  the  Senate;  nationalization  of  unused 
land;  abolition  or  curtailment  of  the  right  of  the 
Supreme  Court  to  veto  legislation;  popular  election 
of  federal  judges;  credit  facilities  for  farmers  "as 
cheap  and  available  as  those  afforded  any  other 
legitimate  and  responsible  industry";  guarantee  of 
the  right  of  collective  bargaining;  prohibition  of 
child  labor  under  sixteen;  and  a  wage  "based  upon 
the  cost  of  living  and  the  right  to  maintain  a  family 
in  health  and  comfort  without  labor  of  mothers  and 
children." 

Another  sign  of  a  drift  in  the  American  labor 
movement  toward  independent  "political  action  ap- 
peared in  the  support  given  by  the  Brotherhoods  to 
the  Plumb  plan  (1919)  for  government  ownership 


168         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

of  the  railways  and  participation  of  the  employees 
in  the  management.  A  Plumb  Plan  League  was 
formed  to  secure  the  cooperation  of  citizens  inter- 
ested in  the  idea  and  a  weekly  paper,  Labor,  was 
founded  in  Washington  to  carry  on  the  propaganda. 
Still  another  sign  of  the  political  drift  was  seen  in 
the  action  of  the  United  Mine  Workers,  who  de- 
manded, at  their  Cleveland  convention  (1919),  the 
nationalization  of  the  mines.  As  this  was  already  a 
part  of  the  program  of  the  western  miners,  it  meant 
that  the  whole  organized  mining  strength  of  America 
was  behind  the  movement  for  public  ownership.  It 
would  thus  appear  that  the  American  labor  move- 
ment, for  the  time  being  at  least,  was  passing  beyond 
"unionism,  pure  and  simple,"  into  a  wider  field  of 
political  and  economic  activity. 

The  drift  of  the  times  could  not  be  long  ignored 
by  the  Executive  Council  of  the  Federation  of  Labor. 
It  realized  that  it  must  face  a  struggle  for  control 
of  the  organization  probably  much  more  serious  than 
its  previous  contests  with  socialists,  who  had  tried  to 
"bore  from  within."  The  rise  to  a  position  of  leader- 
ship and  power  of  men  like  Warren  S.  Stone,  chief 
of  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers,  with 
their  bold  and  defiant  plans  for  lifting  the  worker 
from  a  mere  wage  basis  to  that  of  a  participant  in 
management  and  profits,  meant  a  support  for  indus^- 
trial  radicalism  that  had  to  be  met.  The  American 
Labor  Party  endorsed  the  Plumb  Plan  of  the  rail- 


LABOR  AND  THE  WAR  169 

way  men  and  there  were  signs  of  rebellion  that  might 
mean  a  split  in  the  carefully  built  up  and  harmoni- 
ous American  Federation  of  Labor. 

The  restlessness  of  labor  was  increased  by  the 
threatened  passage  of  drastic  peace  time  sedition 
bills  by  Congress  early  in  the  year  1920.  Mr.  Gom- 
pers  expressed  the  fear  that  these  might  be  applied 
to  conservative  unionists  after  the  "Reds"  had  been 
disposed  of.  With  his  old  vigor  he  led  the  Execu- 
tive Council  of  the  Federation,  therefore,  in  a  pro- 
gram to  capture  state  legislatures  and  Congress  in 
the  approaching  ISTovember  elections.  This  victory 
was  not  to  be  achieved  by  a  departure  from  the  estab- 
lished non-partisan  policy  of  the  Federation,  but  by 
the  aggressive  application  of  that  policy.  The  Fed- 
eration was  to  "reward  friends  and  punish  enemies," 
on  the  theory  that  the  4,000,000  labor  votes  in  the 
country  would  constitute  a  balance  of  power  for  which 
the  old  parties  must  bid  high.  Wherever  it  was 
possible  to  place  a  labor  representative  on  the 
ticket  of  the  old  parties  that  method  was  to  be  used. 

The  aggressive  political  policy  of  the  Federation 
seemed  to  encourage  rather  than  to  intimidate  the 
young  American  Labor  party.  Its  chairman  in  'New 
York,  William  Kehn,  declared:  "There  must  be  po- 
litical organization  to  carry  out  the  political  program 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  and  there  must 
be  a  political  organization  to  support  it  after  election. 
Labor  is  sick  and  tired  of  relying  on  the  pre-election 


170         AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

promises  of  political  decoys  of  men  controlled  by  the 
old  machines,  of  men  elected  by  campaign  funds  con- 
tributed by  the  corporations.  .  .  .  The  more  atten- 
tion the  American  Federation  of  Labor  gives  to  poli- 
tics the  better.  The  more  active  participation  by  the 
Federation  promotes  education  in  politics,  and  it 
leads  inevitably  to  the  conclusion  in  the  minds  of  tlie 
unionists  that  a  labor  party  is  necessary,  and  in  en- 
dorsing labor  representatives  the  Federation  will  have 
to  come  sooner  or  later  to  the  one  party  which  alone 
can  furnish  labor  representatives." 

We  leave  the  subject  as  this  contest  opens. 
Whether  it  will  merely  divide  organized  labor  and 
prove  a  weakness  at  the  polls  or  whether  independ- 
ent political  action  by  labor,  aided  by  "brain"  work- 
ers, will  have  more  vitality  and  permanence  than  in 
the  days  that  have  passed  remains  to  be  seen. 


INDEX 


Agrarianism,  58. 

Aliens,  accused  of  labor  con- 
spiracies, 53 ;  early  attack 
on,  57;  and  unionism,  63; 
contract  immigration  law, 
71. 

American  Federation  of  La- 
bor, rise  of,  86  ff. :  first 
conference,  88;  fixed  poli- 
cy of,  90  ff. ;  growth  of, 
97 ;  organization  of,  98 ; 
and  politics,  106  ff. ;  po- 
litical program  of,  107; 
and  American  Labor  party, 
169. 

American  Labor  party,  ori- 
gin, growth,  program,  165 
ff. 

Anarchy,  definition  of,  137; 
history  of,  138;  in  Amer- 
ica, 140. 

Anthony,  Susan  B.,  76. 

Apprenticeship,  control  over, 
24;  unregulated,  48;  rules 
for,   63. 

Associations,  of  employers, 
14,  15,  26.  See  trade  agree- 
ment. 

Basle,  conference  of,  5. 

Blacklist,    81,    123. 

Boycott,    origin    of,    23;    and 

Sherman  act.  111. 
Brisbane,  Albert,  60. 
Brook    Farm    Colony,    60,   61. 
Brotherhoods,    railway,    101. 


Bryan,     W.    J.,    and    Labor, 

110. 
Bureau  of  Labor,  78. 

Capitalist,  merchant,  12; 
and  the  Civil  War,  67. 

Central  labor  unions,  origin 
of,  49. 

Chinese   question,    77,   78. 

Citizenship,  education  in,  42. 

Civil  War,  and  labor,  65. 

Clayton  act,  112. 

Closed  shop,  22,  attitude  of 
I.  W.  W.  toward,  146. 

Collective  bargaining,  origin 
of,  19 ;  trade  agreements, 
93. 

Combinations  in  restraint  of 
trade,   32.    See   Conspiracy. 

Communists,  and  free  land, 
59;  experiments  in,  60;  or- 
ganization, 137;  anar- 
chism and,  139;  the  gov- 
ernment and,   164. 

Conference,   labor,    (1919),  5. 

Conspiracy,  trials  for,  27, 
28,  52. 

Constitution  of  United 
States,  effect  on  labor 
movement,  11. 

Co-operation,  unionists  and, 
75 ;  Knights  of  Labor  and, 
124;    anarchism  and,    140. 

Courts,  conflicts  of  labor 
with,  27,  28,  52.  See  In- 
junction. 


Ifl 

/ 


172 


INDEX 


Craft   unionism.      See   Trade      Illiteracy,   Labor   attacks  on, 


Union. 

Debs,    Eugene    V.,    108,    109, 

135. 
Defense,  National  Council  of, 

152. 


40. 

Immigration,  effect  on  labor, 
3,  57 ;  contract  labor  law, 
71. 

Independence,  American,  ef- 
fect on  labor,  11. 


Democrats,  and  American  la-      Intellectuals,     and     labor,    6, 


bor,  109. 
Deportation,  165. 


42,  62-3,  78. 
International,  The,   131;   The 

Black,   141;    The  Red,   144; 

Labor    Conference     (1919), 

160. 
I.     W.     W.       See    Industrial 

Workers  of   the  World. 


Education,    early    labor,    15; 
labor  demands  for,   39   ff. 

Eight  hour  day,  92. 

Employers,      excluded      from 
unions,     15,     17;     associa- 
tions   of,    26.      See    Trade      Jacksonian   democracy,   35 
agreement. 

Evans,  G.  H.,  58. 


Jeffersonian    democrats,    28. 


Federalists,  28. 
Feminism,  154. 
Fincher,    Jonathan,    64;    his 

Eeview,  69. 
Fourier,  and  American  labor, 

60. 

George,  Henry,   campaign   of, 

103. 
Gompers,  Samuel,  86,  89,  90, 

91,  92,    105,   110,   151,   157, 

158,    169. 
Greeley,  Horace,  60. 
Greenback   party,   84. 
Guilds,     relation     to      labor 

movement,  2. 

Haymarket  riot,   142. 
Homestead,    law,    71;    strike, 
90. 

Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World,  144;  program  and 
methods,  145;  strikes,  147, 
156. 

Injunction,  conflict  over,  107 
ff.     See  Courts. 


Knights  of  Labor,  character 
of,  116;  philosophy  of, 
117;  ■conflict  with  the 
American  Federation,  120 ; 
decline  of,  123;  co-opera- 
tion among,   125. 

Land,  effect  on  labor  move- 
ment,  3;    public,   58,   71. 

Legislation,  early  labor,  45. 
See  American  Federation 
of  Labor,  Knights  of  La- 
bor, American  Labor 
Party. 

Loco  Focos,  56. 

Market,  rise  and  relation  to 
labor,  12  ff. ;  during  Civil 
War,   66   f. 

Marx,  Karl,  74. 

McGlynn,  Father,   104. 

Mexico,  and  American  labor, 
162. 

Molly   Maguires,   82. 

National     Civic     Federation, 

93. 
Nationalization       of      Indus- 


INDEX 


173 


tries,  in  Socialist  program, 
127;  in  war  time,  156;  de- 
mand for  by  organized  la- 
bor,  163,  167. 

National  Labor  Union,  The, 
72  ff. 

National  unions,  rise  of,  63; 
growth   of,   69. 

Native  American   party,   57. 

Negro,  and  wage  labor,  66; 
and  organized   labor,   76. 

New  Harmony,  colony  of, 
129. 

Owen,  Robert,   129. 

Pan-American  Labor  Confer- 
ence,  162. 

Panics,  and  labor,  54,  55; 
of  1857,  65;  of  1873,  81; 
of   1892,   90. 

Patent  law,   15. 

Peace,  The  Treaty  of,  and 
labor,    158. 

Pinkerton  detective  system, 
123. 

Plumb  plan,  The,  168. 

Political  action,  and  labor, 
33  ff. ;  origin  of,  34;  ex- 
tent of,  35 ;  philosophy  of, 
36 ;  program  of,  37 ;  re- 
sults of,  44;  effects  of,  47; 
second  phase,  55;  in  the 
seventies,  83;  revival  of,  in 
1919,  165. 

Politics,  effect  on  unions,  47. 

Powderly,  Terence,  118. 

Pullman  strike,  108. 

Press,  labor,  69. 

Radicals,  early,  43;  and  la- 
bor, 57;  and  American 
Federation.  92. 

Railway  brotherhoods,   101. 

Reconstruction,  American 
Federation  program  of,  162 
ff. 


Republicans,  66;  and  Ameri- 
can labor,   109. 

Revolution,  definition  of, 
113;  in  labor  world,  116 
ff. ;   Russian,  effect  of,   157. 

Sherman  anti-trust  law,   111. 

Skidmore,  Thomas,  43. 

Slavery,  effect  on  labor  move- 
ment, 4,  65. 

Socialism,  early  American, 
60;  the  Utopians,  128; 
Marxism,  130;  origin  in 
America,  131;  and  Ameri- 
can Federation,  134. 
See  Socialists. 

Socialists,  74;  Social  Demo- 
cratic party,  119;  Socialist 
Labor  Party.  134;  Social- 
ist Party,   135. 

Sorge,  F.  A.,  132. 

Strikes,  early,  21 ;  later,  52, 
64;    of  the   I.   W.   W.,    147. 

Suffrage,  manhood,  in  Amer- 
ica, 3;    woman,  43. 

Sylvis,  Wl   H.,  64,  69;    74. 

Tactics,  labor,  19  ff. 

Tammany  Hall,  56. 

Tariff,  origin  and  relation  to 
labor,    14. 

Ten  hour  day,  38. 

Trade  agreement,  93.  See 
collective  bargaining. 

Trade  union,  origin  of,  10, 
16;  creation  of  central  bod- 
ies, 49;  women  and,  49; 
revival  of,  in  the  forties, 
63;  national  unions,  50, 
51-69,  87. 

Trusts,  effect  on  labor,  4,  90. 
See  trade   agreement. 

Unionism,    See   trade   unions. 

United  States,  economic  pe- 
culiarities of,  2;  suffrage 
struggle  for  working  men 
in,  2. 


174 


INDEX 


Versailles,  peace  of,  5. 
Violence,  and  labor,  82. 

Wages,  early  schedules  of, 
20;  and  apprenticeship,  24; 
minimum,  25;  of  women, 
48. 

Walking  delegate,  origin  of, 
22. 

War,  The  Civil,  and  labor, 
65 ;  effect  on  labor,  67 ;  and 
prices,  67;  the  World,  ef- 
fect on  industry,  150;  and 
organized    labor,     151     flf.; 


legislation,  152 ;  strikes, 
155;  peace  treaty,  158;  la- 
bor in  modern,  6. 

W-ar  Labor  Board,   153. 

War  Labor  Polices  Board, 
153. 

Women:  in  labor  movement, 
76;  and  unionism,  49; 
la^ter    organization    of,   97. 

Women's  International  Labor 
Conference   (1919),  160. 

Women's  Trade  Union 
League,   97. 

Wright,   Frances,    129. 


/ 


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